


Serotonin and Dopamine

by pontmercy44



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Rey doesn't know what she's getting herself into, Social Anxiety, Workplace Relationship, also heavy doses of fluff and smut, because everyone deserves love, even Ben, heavy stuff, is Ben a virgin? who knows, who is totally hopeless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-11-16 18:37:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 28,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11258634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pontmercy44/pseuds/pontmercy44
Summary: He could lie and say it was because he was gentleman, but that wasn’t quite true. “I – well, I want to take advantage of you. But I know better.”Rey looked at him for a long moment, and Ben thought she might slap him. She didn’t. She started to laugh, shaking her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Finally, she said, smiling, “Goodnight, Ben.”Ben turned and walked slowly back to his car. He heard her door creak open, but he didn’t hear it slam shut. It felt as if he was walking away from his chance, from his chance to have something good and uncomplicated and nice.Ben turned around, and went back to the door. Rey waited for him, biting her lip. He took off his stocking cap and held it in his hands in front of himself. His ears were cold without his hat, but he was in the posture of remorse and penance. "I'm sorry. I'm an ass. Can I kiss you again?"





	1. Chapter 1

Ben Solo knew Rey Kenobi was trouble on her first day at the firm.

She smiled blithely at him in the elevator after spilling her coffee on his shoes. That was before he knew she was new project engineer. She poked her head over the top of her cubicle, startled him, and made him spill his coffee again, that same day – this time, on his wrinkled blue Oxford shirt.

“I’m Rey.” Her smile was as bright as it had been in the elevator. She looked young – too young to work in this office.

“I’m the project manager.” Ben said, by way of replying. It wasn’t a completely illogical thing to say. To everyone else in the office, that’s who and what he was. He’d rather be the distant, professional project manager than Ben, the loner. Ben, the weirdo.

“Oh.” Rey flushed, then, as if _she_ was the one who had misinterpreted the conversation. The truth was, she hadn’t. He had just purposefully diverted it. “I’m the new project engineer.”

“Oh.” Ben repeated after her. He looked at his desktop screen, biting his lip. The silence dragged on. The girl – no, human resources would have his head for referring to her as a _girl_ in a professional setting– the engineer was still peering over the top of the cubicle, as if she was expecting something.

“My name is Rey.” She repeated, after a long moment.

Words bubbled up in Ben’s throat. He swallowed them down, gulping air like a fish out of water. He felt like a fish out of water. Making small talk had never been a personal strength.

Ben had a personal policy about his workplace. He didn’t associate with anyone from work outside of work, in a collegial, platonic, or romantic capacity. It was a self-preserving policy. He’d moved to Coruscant eight years ago, cooked up excuses for the suspicious gaps in his resume, and kept to himself ever since. He hunched over his desk – he was too tall for it – like a paperwork monk, politely refusing lunch invitations and avoiding the break room. He didn’t even make small talk in the copy room, when he was trapped there waiting for something to print and someone else happened to wander in.

As a result, he hardly knew how to talk to this girl. She was friendly, and he didn’t want to make friends. She was pretty, far too pretty to go unnoticed, and he shouldn’t have noticed that. He made it a policy not to.

“Your name isn’t _project manager_ , is it?” Rey’s smile fluttered, anxiously. She looked like it almost pained her that he wasn’t receptive to her tentative advances.

Ben gave in. He cleared this throat, his voice cracking as if he was a teenager. “It’s Ben.”

Her smile wasn’t quite so nervous anymore, almost as if she realized, once his voice cracked, that it was _him_ who was nervous. “It’s lovely to meet you, Ben.”

Rey disappeared over the top of her cubicle. Ben leaned back in his ergonomic chair. He doubted she meant that, but it was nice of her to say. She was… nice.

He’d forget about the twice-spilled coffee, and her annoying persistence and her annoying _prettiness_ , and just leave it at that.

***

A week later, a latte was plunked down on the desk in his cubicle at five minutes past eight. His name was scrawled on it in a black sharpie, the kind baristas used.

 People were slowly filtering into the office, unwinding their scarves They were greeting each other, slurping steaming hot macchiatos and other silly, overpriced drinks. Drinks like lattes. Ben didn’t drink lattes.

“It’s lucky you told me your name.” Rey told him. She was fingering the strap of her messenger bag, hovering at the edge of his cubicle. “ _Project manager_ wouldn’t fit so well on the cup.”

Ben knew he ought to thank her; but that might encourage her. He looked at the disposable cup, examining its stupid, smiling green logo, and tried to think of something to say that couldn’t possibly be construed as flirting – he could _not_ flirt with her. “I drink my coffee black.”

He might have imagined it, but Rey flinched a little. She looked down at her feet, and his gut twisted. He didn’t know why he was being such an asshole. There had to be an easier way to keep her at an arm’s length. He had never made things easy on himself, though. That, and he couldn’t think when he was around her. He lashed out, nervously, like a child who couldn’t swim in deep water.

It wasn’t really fair to her to behave like this. She was nice. She was just trying to be nice. He could be nice to her, and it didn’t have to mean anything.

“Thank you.” Ben managed, finally, stiffly.

Rey’s smile blossomed back onto her face.

***

The next morning, another latte was placed, this time a little more decorously, on his papers. “All right, we’re even now.”

“What?” Ben rubbed the back of his neck, wondering whether it was burning. It certainly felt like it was.

“I spilled two coffees on you.” Rey explained.

Before he could think – not that he was thinking straight – Ben blurted out, “We’re really only even if I get to pour two coffees on you.”

Rey blinked at him, as if he’d started speaking in tongues. Such a complete sentence must have surprised her, after how taciturn he’d been. He’d been trying to be funny – the joke wasn’t funny – and maybe that effort surprised her, too.

Rey looked down at herself, her brows crinkling together. She was wearing dark pants, cropped at the ankle and skimming her hips just so, and a white shirt. It would be see-through if it was wet.

Ben imagined how that would look, before he could think better of it. His ears flamed, and suddenly his papers and pens were fascinating. He ruffled through them, scattering them across his desk and making a mess. “I mean – ”

“It’s black this time.” Rey interrupted him. She looked like she was trying not to laugh.

“Thank you.” Ben sagged into his chair, heavily.

***

The company Christmas party was predictably stressful. It was stressful _every_ year. This year, especially so. Somehow, after only three weeks, Rey had endeared herself to everyone, even the grumpiest executive assistants and most fragile-ego architects.

Ben stood in the corner of the room, as far away from the open bar as he could get, half behind a big potted ficus plant. He clutched a bottle of water and crinkled it in his hands, long after it was empty, and watched her flirt and sip cocktails.

Rey had endeared herself to Ben as much as anybody. He could admit that to himself. He’d admitted it to his counselor. She’d said something about _psychosocial growth_ and he’d told her, point-blank, that he had no interest in _growing_ anything with anyone at his workplace. She’d asked him, archly, whether he spent any time anywhere else.

She had a point, there. He didn’t. He was at the office early, and at the office late. He didn’t take lunch. He ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at his desk, every day. He didn’t go to church, or ask his neighbors for eggs and sugar. He ate takeout and watched re-runs. He didn’t belong to a gym. He ran, alone, along the river, late at night or early in the morning.

It wasn’t out of a sense of obligation, or passion, that Ben worked such long hours. It was, like so many things he did, an adaption. He’d compartmentalized his life, and the compartment labelled work was the compartment in which he felt most normal, most safe. At his desk, he was just another pedestrian paper-pusher. For all anyone knew, he had a rescue dog and a steady girlfriend. No one asked.

“You’re rather too big to hide behind that little fern.” Rey’s voice snapped him out of his self-pitying reverie. Ben jerked around to face her, flushing.

“It’s a ficus.” He said, nervously. His hands were sweaty, all of the sudden. “Not a fern.”

Rey’s lips twitched. “How do you know that?”

“I planted this myself.” Ben joked, lamely. “In a few Christmases, it’ll be big enough to hide behind during parties.”

Rey laughed harder than the stupid joke merited. “You don’t like to mingle?”

“I hate to mingle.” Ben told her, honestly. He thrust his hands into his pockets to avoid fidgeting, and looked down at his shoes. The bass was very loud, all of the sudden, or maybe that was his heartbeat in his eardrums.

“Can I get you a drink?” Rey asked, after a long moment. “Promise I won’t spill it on your shoes.”

“No.” Ben thought about elaborating, but he knew if he did, questions would inevitably follow. He didn’t want to answer those questions.

“You don’t drink?” Rey asked, in that oblivious, unabashed way of hers.

Ben cleared his throat. “No.”

There was another awkward silence, this one painfully long. When she spoke, Rey sounded almost confused. “You don’t like me.”

She had the right to be confused, because how could anyone not like her? She was nice, very nice, and pretty. Very pretty. But because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, Ben said, stupidly, “No.”

“No, you don’t like me?” Rey asked, her voice very soft but somehow still audible over the music. “Or no, you don’t _not_ like me?”

Ben rocked on his heels. He regretted backing himself into a corner, both physically and figuratively. He couldn’t resist correcting her ridiculous grammar. “I don’t… _dislike_ you.”

“You like me.” Rey looked so proud of herself – whether for her deductive reasoning skills, or for winning him over – that Ben couldn’t help but smile.

“I didn’t say that.”

She wouldn’t be deterred. “Do you like me, or _like_ like me?”

Ben just smiled at his feet. He’d said a few stupid things already. Better to not speak and avoid saying anything _monumentally_ stupid.

Suddenly, Rey’s little feet came into his plane of vision. She was wearing silly high heels, the kind she never wore in the office. She was standing very close to him, the tip of her pointy toed shoe almost touching his brogues.

“I like you.” She told him, plaintively, when he looked up at her face. It was much closer to his than it usually was, on account of the high heels. He made note – in an academic sense, at least, that was what he told himself – of the bow of her lips and the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. “Will you take me home?”

Ben felt the flush that moved across his face. He swallowed hard, several times. A lump in his throat kept him from speaking for a moment. When he did speak, he stuttered. “How – how much have you had to drink?”

“I meant will you _drive_ me home.” Rey had the grace to look embarrassed – he’d previously thought that beneath her. She seemed so shamelessly happy and carefree, most days. Scarlet-cheeked, she took a deep breath, and a fortifying swallow of her drink. “Since you’re sober. And I am… not.”

“Oh.” Ben winced. He’d jumped to conclusions, and said something monumentally stupid. “Yes.”

***

Rey’s apartment was in a far-flung part of town. As he drove her, Ben calculated that she’d need to transfer trains or buses twice to get to the office. They drove in silence, as the freezing rain drummed onto the room of his seven-year-old sedan.

“This is me.” Rey’s breath fogged up the cold air in the car. She fumbled at the door, and then looked at him, sharply, as he turned off the ignition. They sat in the silent car for a moment. Rey didn’t take her hand off of the door’s lock.  

Unable to bear the silence anymore, and the strange tension that stretched in it, Ben clambered out of the car. He slammed the door behind him and stomped around the car in the slushy snow.

“This neighborhood is a bit dodgy.” Rey told him, sincerely, when they were huddled under her portico, and she’d found her key. “Thank you for taking me home. It was nice of you.”

“You’re nice.” Ben misspoke. He stopped himself, biting his tongue and flushing. He felt as if he only spoke in non sequiters around her. “I mean, you’re welcome – ”

Rey stood on her tip-toes and cut him off, kissing him quickly. It was a sloppy and ill-placed kiss, as if she’d had to do it quickly before she lost her nerve. Half of her mouth pressed against his, and half rubbed against the five o’clock shadow on his chin. She gripped the lapel of his jacket in one strong little hand. It was a nice kiss, nice like she was – warm, and uncomplicated.

Ben touched his mouth with two fingers, as if she’d left something behind for him to wipe off, after she sunk back onto the flats of her feet. Incredulous, he said, “You’re… drunk.”

For the first time since they’d met, anger flared on Rey’s face. It was a credit to her, really, that it took so long, considering what an ass he’d been. “Is that all you have to say?”

Ben could think of plenty of things to say that would make her understand.  None of them were things that he wanted repeated around the office, in hushed whispers and exaggerated gossip. He’d been so careful, for so long. “What do you want me to say, Rey?”

“I like you.” Rey sounded much more sober, all of the sudden. “Surely you know that.”

“You said that.” Ben admitted.  

“I _like_ you.” Rey repeated herself, as if he wasn’t quite bright. “And you like me.”

“I’m your supervisor.” Ben didn’t bother to deny it. He took a step back. “It would be… I won’t take advantage of you.”

It was a lame excuse, and Rey knew it. She wasn’t that drunk. Her eyes narrowed. “Why did you bring me home, then?”

“You asked me to.”

“Why did you walk me to the door?” Rey challenged.

She had him, there. He could lie and say it was because he was gentleman, but that wasn’t quite true. She looked enticing in her red dress, and he’d noticed. Despite himself, he’d noticed. He’d wanted to look at her for a couple more minutes. “I – well, I _want_ to take advantage of you. But I know better.”

Rey looked at him for a long moment, and Ben thought she might slap him. She didn’t. She started to laugh, shaking her head as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Finally, she said, smiling, “Goodnight, Ben.”

As she fumbled with her locked door, Ben turned and walked slowly back to his car. He heard her door creak open, but he didn’t hear it slam shut. He turned around. She was standing in the doorway, watching him walk away. It felt as if he was walking away from his _chance_ , from his chance to have something good and uncomplicated and nice. 

Ben turned around, and went back to the door. Rey waited for him, biting her lip. He took off his stocking cap and held it in his hands in front of himself. His ears were cold without his hat, but he was in the posture of remorse and penance. "I'm sorry. I'm an ass. Can I kiss you again?"

Rey stood back up on her tip-toes, and closed her hands over his ears as she kissed him. They were very warm and soft, even in the winter air. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read any of my other stories - well, this one is a little different. I wanted to tackle a tough topic and try to do it with grace and humor and sensitivity. Worry not - there will be heaping portions of smut and fluff. This is me we're talking about, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

“Ben?” Gwen Phasma, Ben’s counselor, had a crisp, elegant accent that couldn’t hide how anxious a late-night call from him made her. “It’s midnight.”

“It’s an emergency.” Ben paced around his apartment.

“Are you decompensating?” Gwen asked, suddenly sounding much more awake. Ben knew why.  He knew the protocol. If he started decompensating, he had to get to the nearest emergency room. Another voice was muffled in the background. It occurred to him that his counselor was in bed with her husband. To someone else – presumably, said husband – Gwen whispered, “Give me a moment, darling.”

“I kissed that girl.” Ben blurted out. “Well, she kissed me. And I kissed her back.”

Gwen paused, as if she was deciding whether to be gentle with him because he was her patient, and fragile, or whether to be sarcastic. “That’s the emergency?”

Ben rubbed his chest with his open palm; it felt tight. It wasn’t healthy for anyone to agonize over a woman like this. He had enough insight into his own mental illness to know it was especially unhealthy for _him_. “I think she’s a stressor for me – ”

“Did you take your medication this morning?” Gwen interrupted. She was right to do so; that was the first order of business, his first line of defense against decompensation.

“Yes.” Ben exhaled through his nose. He’d double checked the blister pack. Twice.

“You’ve been sleeping normally? Productive at work?”

“Yes.”

“No auditory hallucinations?” Gwen asked, bluntly. He’d been seeing her once a week for eight years; they were beyond niceties. That, and she knew his unique brand of mental illness intimately.

“No.” Ben snapped. “Except for that little voice in my head telling me that kissing her was a bad idea.”

 “You’ve been stabilized for eight years. You were stable at our appointment on Wednesday.” Gwen’s voice took on a soothing tone. It was almost motherly. She was the closest thing he had to a mother, in some ways. “You’re not decompensating.”

Ben huffed, clenching and unclenching his fist. This didn’t feel like decompensation, exactly – it didn’t feel like last time. He remembered that precisely, even though it had happened gradually. Even though it was eight years ago. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he felt as if he had a fever. He searched, wildly, for an explanation. “Maybe I’m having a manic episode.”

Gwen exhaled, almost as if she was laughing or exasperated. “You have depressive type, not bipolar type.”

Ben went back to check the blister pack again, dropping it in his nervousness. He had no idea _why_ he was nervous. Frustration crept into his voice. He’d kept this under control for eight years. He’d kept it a secret from everyone but his endlessly patient counselor for eight years. _This_ was why Rey Kenobi was trouble. _This_ was why kissing her was a bad idea. “Then why am I having symptoms??”

Gwen’s voice lilted a little. “Maybe you’re in love.”

Ben yanked at the ends of his hair, turning in tighter and tighter concentric circles. _That_ was a terrifying thought. He couldn’t fall in love – he _literally_ didn’t think he could fall in love. Social withdrawal was a textbook symptom for people with his diagnosis. He would know. He’d read all of the textbooks, twenty-one and terrified of what his future would hold. “What do I do? Tell her I’m gay or something? Take a sabbatical? Quit?”

“Tell her the truth?” Gwen suggested, gently.

Ben scoffed. His heart wasn’t racing quite as fast anymore. Gwen wasn’t panicking; he shouldn’t, either. She was the professional, after all. But as for telling Rey the truth – Gwen was wrong about that. That could only end in disaster. “ _I’m_ the crazy one?”

***

Ben stood up from his chair, thought better of what he was about to do, and sat back down. He fidgeted for a moment, and then started to stand again. He sat. Again.

Finally, he worked up the nerve to scramble to his feet, lean over the top of the cubicle and look down at Rey’s desk. She’d surrounded herself with succulents and curio. In the midst of it all, she looked like a mad genius, scribbling precisely away on an absurd amount of graph paper.

Ben cleared his throat, and she looked up at him. “Hello.”

“Hello.” Ben felt ridiculous, leaning over the top of the cubicle. “How – how was your holiday?”

Rey’s lips curved, as if she knew how awkward he felt making small talk. His question was stilted, but the was the kind of question that was appropriate two days after Christmas. “Lonely.”

Ben blinked at her. He hadn’t expected that at all. She always seemed to be surrounded by people. Everything that seemed impossibly hard and out of reach for him seemed to come easily to her. “Oh.”

Rey looked down at her graph paper and added, nonchalantly, “I’m not dating anyone, in case you’re wondering.”

Ben glared at the crown of her head, a little perturbed that she’d seen right through his pretenses. He’d spent his holiday eating Chinese food and thinking about her, and no, of course he didn’t care how her holidays were. He just wanted an excuse to talk to her.

He had something he needed to talk to her about, too. People with his diagnosis didn’t have relationships. Sometimes, the unwitting and unlucky person they’d fallen in love with before they were diagnosed stuck with them. Sometimes – if that person was a saint. People like him didn’t find a new person. Gwen argued that they _could_ , if they could be honest and communicate their needs and if that person was – again – a saint. But Ben knew the statistics.

He needed to tell her all this, without really telling her _why_. Not here, though.

“Meet me in the copy room?” He asked.

***

Rey shut the door of the copy room behind her very carefully and quietly. She tucked her hair behind her ear, almost shyly, as she walked towards him. Ben realized too late what she was about to do, and by that point, he was backed up against the copy machine, trapped.

 _This_ kiss wasn’t like the kiss – kisses – on her doorstep. It wasn’t sweet and slow. It was passionate and rushed. Her tongue pressed at the seam of his lips – he wasn’t quite sure how she could reach his lips, without high heels on – and her knees knocked against his. He grappled at the copy machine behind him for purchase, bracing himself against the force of nature that was Rey.  If anything, this was a kiss suited to a dark doorstep more than a copy room. Someone might walk in at any minute.

Gripping her forearms, Ben pushed Rey away with no small effort. Once he’d put a safe distance – six inches – between her lean, warm body and his chest, he should have let go of her arms. Instead, he found himself marveling at how small they were. His fingers wrapped around them with ease. She ought to be fragile, for how small she was.

Rey flatted her hands on his chest, smoothing the wrinkles of his shirt. She bit her lip. Her voice was very soft, as if someone might overhear them over the beeping and busy copy machine. “That was quite unprofessional of me.”

Ben seized on the excuse. This was unprofessional. The smear of her lipstick was unprofessional. The suddenly uncomfortable tightness of his trousers was unprofessional. What he wanted to do to her up against the copy machine was _utterly_ unprofessional.

“I… like you.” Ben told her, keeping her at an arm’s length. “But I like my job.”

“I promise I won’t tell H.R.” Rey teased, her hazel eyes dancing. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

 _You have no idea_ , Ben thought to himself. He ran his hand over his hair. It felt messy – more messy than normal. He supposed that was her fault, for kissing him so passionately. “I really like my job.”

That wasn’t entirely true. He loved his work; he hated interacting with his coworkers. Mostly, he liked the fact that his diagnosis didn’t mean anything at work. No one knew about it. No one treated him like a crazy person, or flinched when he swore after dropping a stack of papers or spilling coffee.

The mischief and light in Rey’s eyes faded. “You didn’t ask me to meet you in the copy room to fool around.”

“We shouldn’t fool around.” Ben told her. “In the copy room or anywhere else.”

They stood there, awkwardly, for a moment. Ben immediately regretted what he’d said. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to kiss her in the copy room, and on her porch. In his car, and in his bed.

The copy machine screeched, and Ben jumped. Rey turned away from him, snatching the papers that the printer had spat out. She neatened them into a stack and clutched it to her chest, biting her lip. He realized she’d printed something – a large print job – just to have a reason to come to the copy room. Her face was bright red. She was embarrassed. She thought he was making excuses. He was, of course, but not for the reason she thought he was. He did like her, enormously.

“Maybe…” Ben cleared his throat, nervously. The door creaked open behind them, and an intern bumbled in, loudly. He was suddenly aware of how close they were standing. He rubbed the back of his neck, awkwardly. “Maybe just not in the copy room.”

Rey looked like she was going to say something, and thought better of it. She glanced over at the oblivious intern, and then set her stack of paper down with a _thunk_. Leaning over it, she scribbled something onto the top sheet. She took the page off the neat pile, and handed it to him.  

Confused, Ben took the eight-and-a-half by eleven inch paper. Scrawled in black pen was a phone number.

***

“What should I wear?” Ben wondered, aloud, from on the slim, comfortable leather sofa in Gwen Phasma’s office.

“That’s not really my area of expertise.” Gwen quipped. “But you should wear blue. Psychologically speaking, that’s the most sincere color.”

“Where should I take her?” Ben folded his arm behind his head.

Gwen didn’t answer his question. “How long has it been since you’ve been on a date?”

Ben studied the ceiling tiles. “I was twenty. I was home for summer vacation and I borrowed my dad’s truck. We got pizza.”

“Everybody likes pizza.”

“You think Rey likes pizza?” Ben turned his head to look at Gwen.

She cocked her head to the side. “Are you nervous?”

Ben looked back at the ceiling, exhaling slowly. “Yes.”

“Are you prepared for sexual intimacy?” Gwen asked, bluntly, folding her arms across her knees.

Ben blinked, incredulous at the sudden turn this conversation had taken. “Are you asking me if I have condoms in my wallet?”

“I mean are you _emotionally_ prepared.” Gwen clarified.

“We’re not going to have sex.” Ben scoffed. His voice hitched, in a traitorous, tell-tale way. It betrayed him – he’d thought about having sex with Rey. He’d thought about it plenty.

“Do you want to?” His counselor prodded.

“I – well, yeah, I _want_ to.” Ben closed his eyes, feeling as if the ceiling was staring down at him in judgment. He wondered how to explain, tactfully, that a lack of sex drive was _not_ one of his textbook symptoms. Gwen mistook his silence for embarrassment, and mistook him to mean that he _wanted_ to, but he _couldn’t_.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed.” She sounded as if she was making a concerted effort to be non-threatening. “Erectile dysfunction is a very common side effect of Risperdal. I can prescribe something – ”

“I don’t have erectile dysfunction.” Of _that_ , he was sure. He’d woken up hard that morning, irritatingly hard. His penis had poked up through his sheets as if to say _today’s the day you’re taking Rey on a date. This is our chance._ Ben scowled at the ceiling without opening his eyes. “I have… emotional dysfunction.”

“That’s not a real thing.” Gwen laughed. “But I know what you mean.”

“I guess you can’t prescribe anything for that.” Ben grumbled, folding his arms across his stomach.

“Time.” She sounded more confident than he was. "When you're ready, it'll happen."

Ben breathed in and out through his nose, insecurity niggling his belly. "What if... what if she thinks I'm not normal?"

Gwen was quiet for a moment. "You should _tell_ her that you're not normal, Ben."

Ben opened his eyes, horrified. He wanted nothing more than for Rey to think he was normal. "I can't tell her. I want a... a _normal_ relationship."

He might have imagined it, but he thought Gwen looked disappointed. "You'll probably never have a totally normal relationship. " 

Ben turned his head towards the back of the sofa, not wanting her to see his face. She'd touched on his worst fear - the one that almost kept him from even trying. _Almost._ Tonight, he would wear blue and take Rey to have pizza. He would make a perfectly reasonable excuse if she invited him in when he walked her to her door and kissed her on the porch.

It would be a perfectly normal night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... yeah, okay, Ben. We'll see about that. 
> 
> P.S. I haven't revealed Ben's exact diagnosis (because dramatic effect) but you might have guessed what it is. The question is, has Rey?


	3. Chapter 3

“I hate first dates.” Rey joked, nervously.

“Me too.” Ben lied. He didn’t hate this date; so far, everything was going smoothly. Perfectly, even. Rey looked perfect. She was wearing blue, just like he was, and when she smiled at him, a little nervously, across the large margherita pizza they’d agreed to split, her smile looked sincere. There was something to Gwen’s psychology of color bullshit, he thought to himself. “I’m normally pretty smooth, but on first dates, for some reason I’m really awkward…”

Rey laughed as if she appreciated him making fun of himself, ducking her head over the table-top.

“You’re funny.” She flicked her hair over her shoulder and said it like she was a little surprised.

“I’m trying to be.” Ben told her, honestly. The colloquial wisdom, he knew, was that funny guys got the girl. He had big ears and a nose that didn’t fit his face. Since he didn’t consider himself conventionally handsome, he had to be funny.

Rey took a big bite of pizza, chewing carefully. He got the impression she could have eaten more voraciously, but she was trying to be polite. She was on her best behavior too, then. They fell into an awkward silence.

He’d written out a list of potential topics of conversation, and folded in up in his pocket, in case this happened. He could excuse himself to the restroom, and consult it, but after agonizing over it for thirty minutes, he knew it by heart. “Where are you from?”

Rey set down her piece of pizza, and swallowed. Very seriously, she told him, “Alabama.”

Ben paused, realizing she was teasing. “You’re funny, too.” She didn’t _need_ to be funny the way he did – she was gorgeous.

“I’m from London. Not the posh part of London.” Rey took another ladylike bite, with what seemed like great concentration.

“Why did you move here?”

“A big change happened to me, so I needed to make a big change.” Rey sounded, for the first time, less than forthcoming. “Where are you from, and why did you move here?”

“The Midwest.” Ben didn’t elaborate further. “There _is_ no posh part of the Midwest.”

Rey made a face. “You don’t have an accent.”

“I like _your_ accent.” Ben countered. “It’s very...”

“British?” Rey raised a brow.

“Sexy.” Ben admitted, before he could put the word through a filter and stop himself.

An impish grin split Rey’s face. “You think I’m sexy?”

“I said your _accent_ is sexy.” Ben felt his ears color, and wished he hadn’t tucked his hair neatly behind them. “But you are… also.”

“ _You_ are tall, dark, and handsome.” Rey cocked her head at him, a smile playing on her lips. She was wearing lipstick. He didn’t think she ever wore makeup in the office. If she noticed his ears – how red, or big they were, she didn’t say. “And mysterious.”

“Mysterious?” Ben laughed, startled. “No, I’m not.”

“You didn’t answer my question.” Rey pointed out. “Why did you move here? Why have you been in the same position for _eight years_ when you’re clearly talented enough to do something else? And why don’t you have some gorgeous girlfriend who’s a lawyer or something equally corporate?”

Ben took a bite of pizza, making a muffled, non-committal noise. He was surprised she’d noticed his work – no one else seemed to. He was just a permanent fixture in the office, plugging away in his cubicle, perpetually single. When he swallowed, he said, awkwardly, “Good pizza.”

Rey sighed, dramatically. “Very mysterious.”

Ben took another bite of pizza without comment. He could only hope that she thought mysterious was intriguing, not weird. Certain things about him _had_ to remain a mystery.

***

Rey fiddled with her keys on her porch, like she was waiting for something. Ben wondered whether this would be strictly-speaking a goodnight kiss – quick and to the point – or something more involved. He stepped, cautiously, closer to her, and leaned down, keeping his hands safely in his pockets so he couldn’t get too carried away.

Rey dodged, turning her cheek. “Do you want to come in for a drink?”

“I don’t drink.” Ben had a perfect excuse, and really, it wasn’t even an excuse. He really didn’t drink. He hadn’t in eight years. Alcohol was a trigger, and a buzz wasn’t worth decompensating. That, and between being mentally ill and his father’s son, he probably had a predisposition to alcoholism.

Rey bit her lip. “I’m not really inviting you in for a _drink_ , Ben.”

“What, uh…” Ben faltered. “What are you inviting me in for?” Rey cocked her head to the side, exasperated, and he laughed at himself. It felt surprisingly good to laugh; it made him feel less nervous. She laughed, too, softly, looking at her feet as if she was a little embarrassed to admit why she was inviting him in. They both knew why. “Oh. That was a stupid question.”

Rey looked up from her feet. She still looked embarrassed, but she seemed hopeful. “Do you want to come in and _not_ have a drink?”  

***

Rey’s apartment had even more succulents and plants scattered around it than her cubicle did. They were tucked into every nook and cranny – the windowsills, the spare inches of a bookshelf, the fireplace mantle. As she took of her coat and scarf, Ben counted them all. “You like plants?”

“I like plants.” Rey looked around at her collection. She draped her coat over the back of the couch and then approached him, almost bashfully. “Especially… ficus plants.”

Ben snorted. All of her greenery was miniature, potted in colorful tins or jars. None of them were big enough to hide behind. For some reason, he wanted to hide. He’d been so sure he could make an excuse and go home, where’d he’d masturbate – safely, solitarily – in his own apartment.

But somehow, he was in Rey’s apartment, and she was walking towards him very slowly. He lost his nerve, and stuttered over his words.

“What’s the plural of ficus? Ficusses?” Rey was standing very close now. His breath hitched. “Fici?”

“Ben.” His name was a warm whoosh against his chin and she closed the distance between them, gently resting her toes on top of his feet so she could stand as near as possible to him. Her hands found purchase on his shoulders. “Stop talking about plants.”

When they’d kissed on the doorstep, she’d been wearing an anorak. In the copy room, she’d taken him aback, and he’d gripped the copy machine for dear life, rather than put his arms around her. Her body felt different when she wasn’t in a bulky coat. Tentatively, Ben ran his hands up her back, counting the vertebrae under his fingers, as they kissed. She felt _fragile._

He was worried her would break her if he wrapped his arms all the way around her. His weight would crush her. Maybe even he was bruising her mouth with his.

Rey’s fingers were as small as the rest of her. Even as she kept kissing him, her tongue licking at the seam of his mouth until it opened, her fingers found the zipper of his coat and worked it down. Once the coat hung open on his body, she pushed the sleeves down the lengths of his arms, and off, over his hands. She laced her fingers through his, touching the tip of her nose to his.

Ben lifted her right hand up to his mouth and kissed it. Then, the left. He held the both of them in his hands and marveled at how tiny and smooth they were.

Rey took a step backwards, but she didn’t tug her hands away. She kept her fingers locked with his, and backed towards her saggy, floral couch. It looked like it had been purchase at a yard sale. It creaked and a spring poked Ben in the knee as he knelt on the cushions. But he never wanted to get off that sad old sofa. No, the mildewed old couch – he loved the couch, because Rey was sinking back into it, drawing him on top of her.  

Rey was still holding his hands. As they kissed, she set one of them, very purposefully, on her stomach, just under the bunched-up hem of her shirt. They both looked at it on her abdomen, as if wondering how it had gotten there.

Slowly, thanking whatever God was smiling on him, Ben slid his hand across the smooth expanse of her belly until he found her lowermost rib. His thumb fit neatly into the notch at the juncture of her ribcage. Tracing her sternum up, he was met with the stiff fabric of her bra.

“May… may I touch your breasts?” Ben asked, suddenly, self-conscious. He was wrist deep up her shirt, and perhaps she didn’t want him to be.

Rey giggled, nodding.

Ben scrabbled with the fabric of her bra, pulling the left cup down over the soft mound underneath it. Her breast was smaller in his hand than he’d expected. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected her breasts to be bigger – perhaps because his only relevant experience in the past eight years was looking at pornography and magazine covers at the grocery store. Rey asked, against his lips, a teasing lilt to her voice, “Do you want to _see_ my breasts?”

It took Ben a moment to catch up. He smushed his mouth against hers, inelegantly, too excited to answer straight away

“Yes.” He kissed her again, apologetically and gently time. “Please.”

They rolled over, nearly falling off the couch. As Rey’s thighs, slim and muscular, settled over his hips Ben tensed, expecting, irrationally, pain. A shudder ran through his body when instead, her pelvis brushed ever so gently against his groin. She ground down into him, and he made a soft, inhuman noise.

Grasping her hem, Rey pulled her shirt off over her head. She crooked her arms behind her body to unclasp her bra, and for that, Ben was grateful – grateful that she was showing him her naked chest, and that he didn’t have to take off her bra himself. He wasn’t sure he remembered how to. It had been years since he’d grappled with one.

Rey’s bra came off, and Ben thought maybe he _was_ having a manic episode. Maybe Gwen was wrong. He felt like he could do anything. After all, this beautiful girl was letting him look at and touch her breasts, and, as if that wasn’t enough, she was rubbing her warm, narrow crotch against his cock. God was benevolent. _She_ was a benevolent Goddess.

His hands wrapped almost entirely around her narrow, naked waist. Each bare breast fit completely in his hand. Her hips moved in a slow, torturous rhythm over the bulge in his pants she leaned forward and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. Her tongue flicked into it. A puffed breath tickled the little wet spot from her tongue when his thumbs circled around her nipples.

Fascinated, Ben ignored his own erection – incredible, considering how aggressively it was straining up to meet her undulating hips. The familiar clean break of the exquisite tension in his lower belly, however, he couldn’t ignore. Normally he _wanted_ that release – he made it happen himself – but now it took him by surprise. He wanted this to go on and on, and it was over far too soon.

 “Oh.” Ben heard himself say, his scalp tingling. His voice sounded very far away, as the endorphins of orgasm flooded his system and made his body go very tense, before it went slack. He could barely _think_. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Rey dipped her head down to kiss him again, oblivious. Her hips were still moving over him, _painfully_ now. Ben froze, mortified, under her mouth. Before he could stop to consider if shoving her off him was the wisest course of action, he was on his feet, and she was on the floor, squeaking in surprise. “What the _hell_?”

“I have to go.” Ben fumbled for his discarded coat, balling it up in front of his body and praying his semen hadn’t soaked through the front of his jeans, painting a wet spot on the left thigh. “I, uh… thank you for the pizza.”

“Ben, you bought the pizza.” Rey scrambled to her feet followed him to the door as he retreated, clutching her shirt over her chest. She looked bewildered and frazzled, her hair a frizzy mess from the friction of the couch cushions.

“Thank you for the…” Ben gestured awkwardly, at her, with his free hand. His other clenched the fabric of his bunched jacket. His ears were on fire. “Goodnight.”

***

On Monday, Ben made his way through the maze of cubicles to Rey’s. It would be easier to just peer over the cubicle divider into her workspace, especially considering his heights, but that felt impersonal. It also foreclosed the possibility of groveling on his knees.

Rey swiveled in her chair when he knocked, gently, on the side of her cubicle. Her face was carefully schooled. She didn’t say anything, and Ben had the feeling she was waiting for him to explain himself, or at least apologize.

He wasn’t very good at apologizing, and there was no way _in hell_ he was going to explain that, like a teenager, he’d ejaculated into the leg of his pants while they were making out. Instead, he all but lunged forward, and thrust his peace offering into her hands. He’d blown his chance – quite literally, blown it – but maybe he could woo her back. He didn’t have much confidence in his ability to _woo_ anyone, but it was worth a try. He had to try.

“I got you a plant. It’s a miniature ficus.” Ben shoved his hands into his pockets, immediately regretting not buying her flowers. A normal person would just buy her flowers, not a stupid –

Rey was examining the potted little plant. She interrupted him, asking softly, “I can’t kiss you in the office, can I?”

Ben blinked at her, surprised. “You – you like it?”

“I like it.” Rey smiled up at him, wrapping both her hands around the ceramic pot.

Ben glanced at the clock on the wall. This was against his personal policy – and against corporate policy, more importantly – but she liked his romantic gesture, and she wanted to kiss him. She _still_ wanted to kiss him. He cleared his throat. “I… I’ve got to go to copy room?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Ben. Poor, poor Ben. 
> 
> P.S. A lot of Ben's mannerisms are really more a product of his inexperience with women and shyness, not of his mental illness (although you could certainly argue they are exacerbated by the social withdrawal caused by his mental illness). He's high-functioning, well-medicated, and well-adapted, but very nervous about relationships. Rey is confused why he is so nervous around her - after all, he's a hottie, and she did ask why he didn't have a girlfriend - but she doesn't necessarily recognize that he has a mental illness. 
> 
> P.P.S. Is Ben a virgin? Good question.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a project deadline looming, and Ben could only duck into the copy room, pretending he had a big print job, so many times. He was the project manager, after all – he had interns who were supposed to be doing the copying. The supervising partner’s anxiety about the deadline was escalating; on Thursday, he gathered Ben’s team into the conference room and blustered for twenty minutes about it.

Rey had taken the abuse stoically, staring down at her pen and paper, while other people working on the project grumbled and shifted in their chairs in the conference room. Those people had filtered out of the office at five o’clock, six o’clock, or seven o’clock. It was almost eight o’clock, and Rey was still at her desk, scribbling away, half of her hair tied in an endearing little knot on top of her head. It bobbed as she worked.

Ben slipped out, too. As the elevator doors closed, he saw Rey look over the top of her cubicle. Every evening that week, he’d come to her cubicle and leaned against it, under the pretense of checking her progress. Really, it was so he could say goodnight. He left without saying goodbye, and she was disappointed, but he came back bearing gifts. Rey’s face brightened at the prospect of food and – he hoped – his company. “You brought me takeout?”

Ben set a red and white, square takeout box down on her desk, as if he was leaving a trinket on a god’s altar. “Not just any takeout. Mama Foo’s. I don’t think Mama Foo is actually Chinese, but it’s good.”

Rey laughed. “Pizza, Chinese… you eat like man who doesn’t know how to turn an oven on.”

Ben dragged a chair from a nearby cubicle into hers and settled into it, popping open his own box. “I’ll turn the oven on for the third date.”

Rey’s brows rose. She took a bite of fried rice and asked, skeptically, around it, “You can cook?”

“No.” Ben played with his sweet and sour chicken. “I can turn the oven on.”

Rey grinned and waggled her head, teasingly. “So is this our second date?”

Ben thought about it for a second. They were alone in the office. There was food – Chinese takeout, granted, but there was food. The lights were low and somehow the cubicle felt intimate. He knew how he wanted the night to end – the way a date would. “Yes.”

Rey leaned over in her chair, and pecked him on the lips, without prologue. The kiss was startling in it normalcy and simplicity. It was gentle, but it almost knocked him out of the borrowed swivel chair. Metaphorically, that was rather fitting, even if it was embarrassing.

Rey’s knuckles brushed his cheek as he steadied himself. She looked at him like she regretted something. “I’ve got to work late.”

Ben shrugged. “I can drive you home.”

Turning back to her work, Rey said, sounding carefully indifferent, “I can just take the bus and the train.”

Ben gave her a look that she couldn’t see. He directed it to the silly, cute bun on top of her head. She was as silly as it was, wanting to take public transport late at night – and, as cute. “I can’t let you take the train this late.”

Rey raised one brow, looking over her shoulder. “Worried some psycho is going to kill me?”

Ben kept his face carefully blank, even though he wanted to cringe. She was joking, but he hated that word. In his worst-case scenario, she found out about his diagnosis and called him that word. “I’m driving you home.”

“You don’t have to.” Rey caged.

“I want to.” Ben insisted.

“We’re not going to have sex.” She told him point-blank, spinning her chair around to face him. As she went on, her voice became increasingly defensive, as if she anticipated he’d be angry. “It’s been a long week. I’m too tired.”

“Um… okay.” Ben paused, mystified by the tangent the conversation had taken. “I’m still driving you home.”

Rey looked equally confused for a moment, as if she were surprised that he hadn’t changed his mind about driving her home. Then her face smoothed out into the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen. “You’re sweet.”

 _Sweet. Psycho_. Both of those words began with the same sound, Ben thought, abstractly, as she turned back to her work.

***

“Would you like to come in?” Rey asked, on the doorstep. She’d grabbed his hand somewhere between his car and her stoop. She didn’t let go of it to bother with the pretext of trying to find her key.

“You said we weren’t going to have sex.” Ben couldn’t help but feel slightly betrayed. He’d been secretly relieved when she’d said that she was tired.

On a fundamental, male level, Ben wanted sex. When he wasn’t in a depressive episode – and thanks to the anti-depressants in his bathroom cabinet, he wasn’t – his libido was normal. High, even, if the past two weeks were any indication. Maybe that was just Rey.  

On a psychological level, Ben was anxious about sex. His spectacular failure on Rey’s couch only made it worse. Anxiety was a self-fulling prophecy – he was nervous about being bad in bed, and nervousness would make him bad in bed. He’d fumble his way through it, having mastered the theoretical physics but not the applied physics. He didn’t think he could pretend to be some sort of sex god, experienced and confident. He thought he might die of embarrassment if she found out that his last sexual encounter had been in the backseat of his father’s truck just before his twenty-first birthday. At least, if he died, he wouldn’t have to explain _why_. Better to let her think he was a celibate freak than to tell her he was mentally ill.

“And you still took me home.” Rey explained. “That makes me want to have sex with you even more.”

Ben choked out a nervous laugh, feeling his traitorous cock twitch in response. It hadn’t been affected by his anxiety, apparently. “I think that’s called reverse psychology.” Rey grinned; her smile split into a comically huge yawn. Ben waited until it was over – it seemed to go on and on – before he said, unable to keep affection from creeping into his voice. “You need to go to bed.”

“You, too.” Rey countered, stubbornly.

Ben laughed. “You’re right. Goodnight, Rey.”

As he turned to walk down the steps, she grabbed his arm. “ _My_ bed.”

“But…” Ben thought immediately of the blister pack on his bedside table. He took his Risperdal first thing the morning, and checked that he’d taken it, somewhat compulsively, at least three times before he left his apartment.  “I don’t have a toothbrush.”

“You can share mine.” Rey saw the look on his face. “What? You kiss me.”

“I don’t have pajamas.” Ben protested, though only half-heartedly.

Rey didn’t let go of his arm. “...and?”

***                                                                

Rey’s bed was as lumpy as her couch. Ben tested it with both hands, bent double over it, while Rey was in the postage-stamp sized bathroom. He straightened up, blushing furiously, as she meandered into the bedroom, toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, askew. She wasn’t wearing pants. He was grateful, at least, that she wasn’t wearing anything that was intentionally sexy. It probably would have given him a coronary.  The old t-shirt and her bare, slender legs were sexy enough, in an unintentional kind of way.

Taking the tooth brush out of her mouth, Rey stood on her tip-toes and gave him a minty kiss. “Which side do you want?”

***

When Ben came out of the bathroom, Rey was sitting up in bed. She watched with almost unnerving intensity as he peeled his shirt off over his head. Out of habit, he started to unbutton his trousers. He hesitated, self-conscious.

“Are you going to sleep with your trousers on?” Rey teased.

Ben glanced at the bedside lamp, and compromised. “Are you going to sleep with the lights on?”

The last thing he saw clearly before the light flicked off was Rey rolling her eyes. In the dark, he unzipped his jeans and kicked them off his legs. He shuffled over to her bed in the dark, whacking his knees on the baseboard.

“It’s like a sleepover.” Rey beamed at him, her face half-buried in her pillow, once he was under the covers.

Ben folded his hands awkwardly over his sternum. He felt too big for this bed, especially since he was trying to stay on his allotted half of it. If he flung out his arms, he’d smack her in the face. His feet pressed against the baseboard. “I haven’t had a sleepover since I was twelve.”

“I haven’t ever had one.” Rey told him. Before he could ask why, she went on. “I mean a _proper_ sleepover. Obviously, I’ve had boyfriends stay the night.”

“How...” Ben croaked, feeling his ears heat up. It wasn’t just a misplaced sense of jealousy that made him ask. “How many boyfriends?” The sheets and pillows rustled, and he immediately regretted asking. Rey would, inevitably, ask him the same question.

“Seven or eight?” A loaded silence ensued. “You?”

“No boyfriends.” Ben deflected, trying to be funny.

“Don’t be cheeky.” He could tell she was exasperated, even in the dark.

There had been two. Beth, in high school. That hardly counted. They’d held sweaty hands in the hallways and his dad had driven them to the movies. Alla, in college – or rather, when he was home from college. _That_ counted. “You’re the third.”

Rey’s slight weight sunk his half of the old mattress, and part of it settled on his torso. The point of her chin was resting on his pectoral. Her breath was very warm on his bare skin. He braced himself for the inevitable question, but instead, he got a question he wasn’t expecting.

“Are you saying I’m your girlfriend?” Ben was silent, unsure of whether she was serious or just teasing him. When he didn’t answer, Rey said, "I _know_ you aren’t asleep yet.”

Ben smiled at her in the dark. “Goodnight, Rey.”

He expected Rey to roll back to her side of the bed. She didn’t. She nuzzled closer, half of her body tucked into his armpit. Her hand splayed out over his belly, fussing with the blanket and tucking him in. She sighed gustily, and then pressed a dry kiss to his chest. “Goodnight, Ben.”

***

Somehow – ridiculously – Rey managed to wrap herself around him like a koala bear or a big spoon by the time the sun rose. Ben woke up to the sensation of fingers stroking though his hair. It reminded him of his mother, in an oddly pleasant way. It was comforting. He closed his eyes again, shivering when something wet latched onto the shell of his ear. He didn’t flinch away – no use trying to hide his ears when she had her hand in his hair.

Rey’s hand crept around his body and down the plane of his belly, until it brushed the warm, bright-and-early bulge in his briefs. She made a muffled, amused noise into the back of his neck, and then two of her fingers crooked under the elastic waistband of his briefs and snapped it gently against his abdomen. The very slight pain made Ben come to his senses. He rolled away and off the bed, looking desperately at the bedside table. His Risperdal wasn’t there. It was at home. He needed to go home.

Rey started giggling and, with a sick feeling, Ben realized that he was standing in front of her in just his briefs. His hard-on was jutting towards her, stretching out the cotton of his underwear. And she was _laughing._

“You have a huge dick, too?” Rey managed, red-faced.

Ben blinked at her, and then down the length of his body. Suddenly, he was less embarrassed. “What?”

“You’re thoughtful. You have a decent job. You're a good kisser but you haven’t tried to get in my pants. _And_ you have a huge dick.” Rey explained. Ben grinned at his feet, unbearably proud. “There must be _something_ wrong with you. Do you have a wife and kids in the suburbs? Go on weekend killing sprees? Stint in a mental hospital?”

Ben’s smile faded. There was something wrong with him - very wrong. For just a moment, he’d thought that this was the perfect time to tell her the truth, or to at least begin to explain. If she liked him as much as he liked her, maybe it wouldn't ruin everything. But then, one of her wildly-exaggerated, sarcastic guesses had landed not far from the truth - as if mental illness was _so bad_ , surely that couldn't be his secret.

“Ben?” Rey cocked her head. Ben bent over the bed and kissed her forehead. She smelled like sleep and something soapy and womanly. 

“I'm not hiding anything” He lied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever put your foot in your mouth and not even know it until later?
> 
> P.S. What's up with never having had a sleepover and Rey's love life?
> 
> P.P.S. Coming up - Ben comes to terms with the fact that he's definitely going to bone Rey. What's a guy to do? Some homework, of course!


	5. Chapter 5

“No!” Ben sat up, abruptly, on the leather couch in Gwen’s office. “No, no, no. We are not having this conversation. You’re not a sex therapist!”

“I can refer someone – ”

“And I _don’t_ need a sex therapist.” Ben was, in that moment, very glad he’d kept his _accident_ on Rey’s couch a secret. “Everything – everything _works_.”

“You don’t just have sex with your penis, Ben.” Gwen retorted, crudely. “You have sex with your heart and your head, too.”

Ben felt his neck flush. He was, admittedly, a bit defensive. Just because everything worked, physically, that didn’t mean he knew how to work _with_ what he had. That wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have with his psychologist, though – or with anyone, for that matter.

He thought, briefly and painfully, of a conversation he and his father had had when he was fifteen. It was mortifying. Now he wished he’d listened. It would be equally – if not more – embarrassing to ask for advice now, at nearly thirty years of age. Besides, he couldn’t go to his father for advice about anything, anymore.

Gwen must have seen the look on his face, because she asked, gently, “How’s your heart?”

Ben crooked his arm behind his head and exhaled in a rush. “It hurts, in a good way. When I see her, my chest aches because I’m so nervous and excited.” He exhaled again, more slowly this time. “And sometimes it hurts in a bad way. When she says things or does things that…” he trailed off, remembering that awful word: _psycho._

Gwen narrowed her eyes. “And how’s your head?”

“What do you mean?”

“Being naked with someone is a very vulnerable thing.” Gwen crossed her legs, leaning back in her chair. “I think you don’t want to give her the power to hurt you, and you think having sex with her will give her that power. That’s what’s causing your dysfunction.”

“Jesus Christ, don’t call it _that_.” Ben groaned. He _was_ afraid – not of her hurting him, but of what her hurting him would make _him_ do. Would he decompensate? Would her leaving trigger a depressive episode? Would this one be weeks, or just days? Would he hear the voices again? Would he – God forbid – listen to them, like he had when he didn’t know they were just delusions?

“We don’t have to call it that.” Gwen conceded. “But I like I said, I can refer someone – ”

“ _No_.” Even though he didn’t want to have this conversation, he heard himself saying, partially to Gwen, to prove her wrong, and partially to himself, in a bout of particularly wishful thinking, “And I’m going to have sex with her tonight.”

***

Having committed himself – or rather resigned himself – to take Rey to bed, Ben did his homework.  Gwen was right, he decided. A person had sex with their penis, their heart, and their head. His heart felt ready. It hadn’t felt so _much_ in years. It was practically sore in his chest from being stretched out and abused. His penis was _absolutely_ ready. He’d abused it plenty, too, in the privacy of his own apartment.

As for his head, what it needed, he determined, was not Gwen’s psychoanalytical bullshit, but the benefit of research.

Ben had always subscribed to the idea that knowledge is power. When he’d first been diagnosed, he’d looked to the far-reaches of the internet. When the horror stories there had led him to despair, he’d poured over less-histrionic textbooks. The clinical, unemotional language in those medical textbooks drew him out of his depression. By the time he came to his first outpatient appointment, he knew every side effect of Risperdal and every chemical that made his brain the way it was.  Knowing all of that made him feel more in control.

So now, Ben did something he wasn’t particularly proud of, as a man. He couldn’t use porn as a reference for sex with Rey. He knew he wasn’t going to be pumping into her for hours on end while she screamed his name. He’d settle for a moan or two and six to eight minutes of intercourse. But, he was determined that those six to eight minutes be good. The _best_ six to eight minutes of her life.

He went to Barnes and Nobles and bought a copy of _Cosmopolitan_.

***

At his apartment, Ben set the mysterious women’s magazine down on the kitchen table then retreated, studying it from a safe distance. Under the plastic wrap, a blurb on the cover read _Oral Sex Tips You’ll Both Love!_ In slightly less gaudy typeface, _Top Ten Best Sex Positions – Expert Approved!_

First, he flipped to page sixteen – the oral sex tips. That seemed like a good place to start. His deviant mind often started there, when he was laying in bed, alone. In a matter of paragraphs, he realized that his fantasies were remarkably tame. He nearly dropped the magazine when he read the words _acidic fruit_ and _penis_ in the same sentence. The next sentence was even more alarming – the words _teeth_ and _clitoris_ should never be near one another, he decided, even if said teeth were supposed to be gentle.

Ben set the magazine down, his sensibilities offended, and went to get some cookies. One after another, he stress-ate chocolate and cream biscuits, eyes wide, as he flipped through the second article. He was skeptical, now, but if he wanted to seem like an expert, expert-approved sex positions were in order. Some of the positions – there were helpful diagrams included – looked like yoga or gymnastics maneuvers. Some made his cock twitch, encouragingly. Some made him grimace. One, according to the article, would _make you feel like a sex god._

“You can do this.” Ben leaned back in his chair, nervously stuffing another cookie into his mouth. He swallowed, his throat dry. To himself, he added, only-half seriously, “Ben Solo, sex god.”

***

Rey sent a text message to Ben and asked him to bring paper plates and pasta sauce – the cheap kind – with him. If he’d turn her stove on, she joked, she’d make him dinner. Smiling to himself, he read her text over and over as he wound through the aisles of the grocery store.

Ben stopped short as he passed the toiletries section.

He was mentally prepared, and as emotionally prepared as he could ever be, but he wasn’t physically prepared. He needed to bring condoms, and what’s more, he needed to act as if he always had them on hand and hadn’t bought them, red-faced and nervous as a teenager, two blocks from her apartment.

The selection of condoms was overwhelming. There were ribbed condoms, extra-large condoms, extra-thin condoms, basic bargain condoms, lubricated condoms, glow-in-the-dark condoms (those might be useful, Ben conceded, if the lights were off), condoms with aggressive-sounding names like _charged_ and _torpedo_ , and condoms with romantic-sounding names like _her pleasure_. There were condoms with names that sounded like industrial steel, condoms with names like ice cream bars, and condoms with names that misspelled the word _skin_ in various ways.

Ben looked furtively up and down the aisle, as if he was worried his mother or nosy neighbor was going to catch him. Feeling stupid, and stupidly nervous, he mumbled, “I am an _adult_.”

Cheeks hot, he grabbed a box with a name he recognized – Trojan. He stuffed it under the paper plates and pasta sauce in his basket, rearranging his purchases to hide the incriminating blue box.

***

The reason Rey had asked him to buy paper plates was that she had none. She had a rusty-bottomed old pot, mis-matched cutlery, a wooden slotted spoon, and a box of dried spaghetti. Ben couldn’t help but laugh when he opened cupboard after cupboard, finding each bare.

“I just moved in.” Rey told him, defensively, trying and failing to open the pasta sauce.

Ben took the jar from her, without comment, and twisted the lid off. “What have you been eating for the past month, cereal?”

“Cereal and pasta.” Rey’s cheeks turned a pretty shade of pink. “I didn’t pack much in the way of utensils.”

Ben looked around the apartment. It was full – well, sparsely furnished with – items that he was sure had come from thrift stores. There were no personal pictures or small comforts, besides her collection of plants. His gift to her was in a coveted spot on the window sill.

As if she could tell what he was thinking, Rey admitted, “I didn’t pack much at all.”

“You just packed a suitcase and headed west?” Ben asked, crossing his arms over his chest. He felt useless, watching her cook. He wished he could do something with his hands. Naughty things, maybe.

“Something like that. A knapsack, actually.”

“Why?”

Rey turned back to the stove. After a painfully awkward moment of silence, she said, “My parents are here.”

“What?” Ben blinked at the back of her head.

She stirred the sauce into the noodles, a little too aggressively. “I have their address.”

Ben paused, realizing, instinctively, that he needed to tread lightly. He wanted to ask why she would stay in this barely-furnished shoebox of an apartment, and not with them, but something told him he shouldn’t. “You came here to see them?”

Rey handed him a plate of pasta. She avoided his eyes. “I came here to meet them.”

Rey didn’t have a table and chairs; she sat on the countertop, legs dangling and spread a little more than was ladylike. Ben leaned against the opposite counter, holding his plate of pasta in one hand and his fork in the other. He didn’t know what to say, so he ate in silence.

“I know there’s a good reason they left me.” After a few minutes Rey wound a strand of spaghetti around her fork and examined it, her mouth set in a hard line. “I wanted to ask them what it was. I wanted to ask them in person.”

“Oh.” Ben said, lamely. He couldn’t think of anything to say. The obvious thing – _what if there isn’t a good reason?_ – was far too cruel.

“There has to be a good reason.” Rey added, almost to herself. As if her appetite was ruined by their conversation, she set her plate aside.

“I’m sure there is.” Ben lied. She seemed to know he was lying, and suddenly, she looked sad. That made his heart hurt, and not in the good way it hurt when she smiled at him. “How could anyone not want you?”

At that, Rey smiled a little. She spread her knees a little more, and the tack of her conversation changed drastically. “Most men want me. Do you want me?”

When Ben craned his neck to try and look up her skirt, surreptitiously, he dropped his dinner, up-turning his plate and spilling blood red sauce all over her cheap linoleum floor. Horrified, he looked down at the mess, and then up at her. “I can clean that up.”

Rey shook her head, laughing. She wound a strand of spaghetti around her fork and held it out to him, across the narrow kitchen.  When he didn’t move, frozen in embarrassment, she beckoned him with the laden fork. As he stepped closer, and opened his mouth, she put the pasta in his mouth.

“Yes.” Ben said, once he’d swallowed. “I want you. Badly.”

Fork still in her hand, Rey wrapped her arm around the back of his neck and drew him between her knees. As they kissed, his weight bore down on her, and her hand slid back across the countertop and into a plate of pasta sauce, getting all sticky and messy.

Grinning, she lifted it up and pressed it to his mouth. Grasping her palm, Ben cleaned her fingers off, one at a time, with his mouth. He kissed his way down her forearm, and then across the plane of her collarbone, until he was dead-center.

As he moved his lips down her sternum, his hands slid from her knees, up her thighs. The found the lacy edge of her panties, scrunching up her skirt as they eased along her soft, smooth skin. He mouthed the button between her breasts, wondering if he could unfasten it with just his lips and tongue. If he could, that probably portended success when he tried some of the things he’d read about in _Cosmopolitan_.

“There’s something I should tell you.” Rey said, into his hair. Ben almost quipped, before he thought better of it, that he thought that was his line. He lifted his head, and she smoothed a drop of spaghetti sauce off his chin. “I’m allergic to latex.”

Ben rested his hands on her hip bones, the fabric of her dress bunching up under his hands. He looked down at it, distracted by the sight of her cream-colored lace panties and confused. “You’re allergic to what?”

“Latex.”

Ben cocked his head, baffled. “Like… latex gloves?”

Rey’s cheeks darkened. “Like latex condoms.”

Ben froze, realizing she’d seen the box of Trojans when she’d taken the pasta sauce and plates out of the plastic grocery bag. He felt inexplicably ashamed at having brought them, even if she was letting him feel her up in his kitchen. “Oh.”

“I might asphyxiate.” There was a beat of silence. Then, flustered, Rey joked, weakly, “I mean, if you’re into that – ”

Ben leaned forward and kissed her to shut her up. He couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that all of his research and self-aggrandization had been for naught. Then again, the heavens had opened and given him a gift in the form of a latex allergy. He didn’t have to make an excuse or make her feel unwanted. He could forestall the horrible possibility of premature ejaculation, or of her asking whether it was inside her yet, or, worst of all, of her laughing at him, for a little bit longer. “I’m not into that. I’m into _you_.”

Rey bit her lip, looking pleased. “I have become rather fond of our no-sex sleepovers.”

“Are you asking me to stay the night?”

Rey pushed the hair out of his face, a silly, fond look on her face that his cockiness didn’t warrant. “Yes. Maybe we could have a sleepover at your place, next time.” She looked around. “Do you have real plates?”

Ben laughed, but he felt unease curl in his gut. His apartment was his sanctuary. He’d never let any woman inside it – or any person, for that matter. Rey might see the blister pack of Risperdal by his bedside table, or the medical bills on the side-board. She might rummage around and find the antidepressants in the bathroom cabinet. She might wonder why there was always a blinking light on his voicemail machine – an old-fashioned one he’d set up so his psychologist’s calls didn’t come to his work or cell phone. She might ask why he went back to his bedside table, over and over, before he left the apartment to go to work. “I have real plates but no pots whatsoever.”

Rey laughed, and curled her fingers into the hairs at the back of his neck. Her thighs squeezed either side of his hips. “We make quite a pair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cock-blocked by allergens! Yes, latex allergies are a real thing. Yes, latex-free condoms are a real thing. Yes, Ben will figure that out once he works up the courage to go back to the condom aisle. 
> 
> P.P.S. I had too much fun writing about Cosmo. As a kid, that magazine absolutely scandalized me, so I tried to capture that. Ben's a late bloomer, after all! 
> 
> P.P.S. Why did Rey's parents leave her? And does she just want to fill that emotional void with sex, or does she have real feelings for Ben? Unlike Ben, she doesn't have a therapist in this story, so you're welcome to be her therapist ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't want to read an explicit sex scene, skip this chapter... oh, who am I kidding.

It was almost five o’clock, and if it weren’t for the foil pouch burning a hole in his pants pocket, Ben’s midafternoon slump would have been underway. His nerves kept him from even needing coffee. His legs jiggled under his desk, occasionally smacking the underside of it.

He’d purchased latex free condoms. For two days, the box had been tucked away in the mirrored medicine cabinet of his bathroom. He didn’t like looking at it next to his antidepressants Those two things shouldn’t go together – Rey and his mental illness.

Ben balled up piece after piece of paper, disliking everything he worked on. He’d brought one of the condoms to work, in his wallet, on the off-chance that he would need one. It wasn’t likely. It was a Monday. A _busy_ Monday.

As Ben grabbed another sheet of paper, though, inspiration struck. He folded it into a paper airplane, and, before he could lose his nerve, tucked the condom inside. Leaning back in his chair, he lobbed the paper airplane across the top of his cubicle and into Rey’s. There was a soft swish as it landed amongst her papers. He was just glad he hadn’t hit her head. That would be the least subtle way to suggest that they have sex – smacking her in the face with contraceptives.

After a moment, Rey’s chair rolled across the floor – he heard it – and she poked her head over the top of the cubicle. He was suddenly embarrassed by what he’d done. It seemed hopelessly juvenile. He’d pitched a condom at her _head_ , like a little boy who throws rocks at a little girl he’s too shy to talk to.

“You’re quite lucky you didn’t miss and send that flying into Steve’s cubicle.”

Ben laughed, nervously. “It’s for you. It won’t make your throat close up.”

Rey kept a perfectly straight face, as if he wasn’t acting ridiculous. “I like it even better than my miniature ficus.”

Ben chuckled, awkwardly, twirling his pen between his fingers. _God_ , he hoped she did. “At least I didn’t throw _that_ at you.”

***

In his car, Rey put her hand on his upper thigh, and squeezed a handful of it – her hand couldn’t quite stretch across it. Ben jumped, and slammed on the brake unintentionally. Unrepentant, she stroked up and down the length of his femur as he drove, her fingers tickling him through his slacks.

“I can’t focus when you do that.” He managed, after her thumb grazed the place where the seams of his two pant legs met, just an inch below his crotch, and he narrowly missed rear-ending another car. Her hand felt intimate on the muscle of his leg – possessive.

Rey patted his knee, less sensually. “I’m sorry. Can you drive with one hand?”

Ben glanced over at her. “Why?”

“You have a green light.”

Ben stomped on the gas, flustered. “Why?”

Wordlessly, Rey reached over, took his right hand off the steering wheel, and settled it onto her thigh.

Ben laughed, but he kept his eyes on the road and his hand on her warm, slender thigh. He remembered his father resting his hand on his mother’s leg on road-trips. “That’s not any better.”

***

Rey didn’t let go of his hand even after he closed his apartment door behind him. Ben was spared trying to give her a tour – _this is where I eat frozen burritos for dinner, this is where I watch porn on my laptop, this is my nightstand, please don’t look in there_. Rey acted as if it was her apartment, as if she knew where everything was already. She led him down the short hallway to his bedroom.

Just as she crossed the threshold, Ben caught up to her, and let go of her hand. She half-turned, confused, and he scooped her up. It wasn’t a graceful, like a groom carrying his bride over the threshold. It was a little awkward. As he hoisted her up, she flailed, and her elbow smacked against the doorframe.

“ _Ben_.” Rey yelped. “What are you doing?”

“I’m… sweeping you off your feet?” Ben’s voice cracked in a way that made him wince.

“Don’t drop me.” Rey warned, winding her arms tightly around his neck and rubbing her elbow.

Ben huffed, amused. She felt impossibly light in his arms. He might have almost broken her arm, but he wouldn’t drop her. “I won’t let you fall.” He laid her out, very carefully, on the mattress, determined that he wouldn’t hurt her again.

As he loomed over her, Rey’s fingers curled, in an unmistakable gesture. “I already am.”

“What?” Ben straightened up, confused.

Rey’s cheeks turned pink. “Falling.”

His knee was still planted on the bed, otherwise, he might have fallen over. He stared at her for a long moment, and then he lost his nerve. 

“Stay.” He held up his palms, as if in surrender, as he backed towards his bathroom. He was surrendering, in a way. This felt inevitable. “Stay.”

***  
In the bathroom, Ben brushed his teeth with shaking hands. He put on deodorant. He contemplated taking out another condom and putting it on, so she wouldn’t see him fumble with the foil packet and the sticky non-latex sheath.

Bracing himself on the sink, he breathed hard through his nose. He imagined his father’s face, crinkled up in inappropriate good-humor – and the way he used to slap his back, enjoying his son’s embarrassment. “Don’t fuck this up, Solo.”

 _Kid_. His father would have called him _kid_ , not Solo. He was thirty years old, but in this moment, he _felt_ like a kid. Wiping his sweaty hands on his pants, Ben opened the door of the bathroom.

Propped up against his headboard, Rey held up his contraband copy of _Cosmopolitan_ by its back cover, raising her eyebrows. He’d left it on his nightstand – purely for research purposes. That was somehow more embarrassing than the alternative. “Unlocking the mystery of the female psyche, are we?”

“That’s not mine.” Ben choked, panicking. Rey’s brows rose even higher. “No, shit, fuck – I mean, it’s not another woman’s. There isn’t another woman.”

“Good.” Rey bit her lip. “I normally wouldn’t care if there was. But I like you.”

“You should care.”

“What?” Rey asked, looking at him over the top of the magazine.

“You should care.” Ben repeated himself, not quite sure how to word his sentiments. He was hurt for her, by how she’d been treated in the past. “You deserve to be the only one.”

Rey hid her face behind the magazine for a moment, and he thought he’d said something wrong. Then, she lowered the plasticky pages and flicked through them, the tip of her tongue sticking out between her lips. Her voice cracked a little as she cracked a joke, the way she was wont to do when she didn’t know what else to do. They had that in common, Ben realized.  “Tell the truth. Were you jerking off to this?”

“I jerk off to you.” Ben said, before he could think better of it. Rey blinked up at him, her hair splayed out on the pillow, and he realized what he’d just admitted. His face colored. They still had all their clothes on and he had already fucked this up beyond imagination.

By some miracle a slow smile spread across Rey’s face, and she reached for the hem of his shirt, tugging him down on top of her. He hunched down into her kiss, not sure where to put his hands, his weight.

 Eventually, he settled for bracing himself over her, arms outstretched. Rey rested her chin on her chest as she unbuttoned her shirt, her fingers more nimble than his would have been.

Ben sat back on his heels. He picked at the hem of her shirt, and moved it to one side. Rey’s bra was purple. Her nipples poked right through the netted material of it, a shade darker. He thought he remembered the color of them – melon pink, not purple at all. “I wore matching underwear for you.”

Ben looked down at her sensible wool dress trousers. She was playing the with button at the top of them. He looked up at her face. She was flushed and bright-eyed. She’d worn matching underwear so he could see it. She’d wanted this to happen. “Can… may I see?”

As she inched her trousers down, Ben backed down the length of her legs, still kneeling over her. Once the pants were kicked off her slim ankles – he crawled back up the length of her legs, kissing each knee on the way.

Her panties were dark purple and sheer. He stole a sidelong glance at the discarded copy of _Cosmo_ on the floor next to the bed, and then hooked his index fingers into the strip of fabric between her thighs and ripped it. The sound of the fabric made his cock throb, somehow, even though it would have been innocuous in any other context.

“Ben!” Rey sat up. “Those are expensive!”

 “I’m sorry.” Ben couldn’t bring himself to really regret it. She was pink and damp and totally mysterious to him. “No, I’m not.”

Rey laughed and laid her head back down on the pillows, working her hips into the mattress a little to get comfortable. She wriggled one leg free from between his thighs, and eased it over his hip, pushing him down on his belly between her legs.

Propped on his elbows, Ben worked his tongue in his mouth for a second, trying to figure out where on earth to _put_ it. He had a strategy, thanks to his research. He’d known his _ABC_ ’s since he was a toddler. It couldn’t be _that_ hard, once he found the right spot.

Rey rocked her hips, impatiently. In a stroke of genius – or desperation – Ben dragged his thumb and index finger through the downy outer lips between her legs and pulled them apart. The little nub at the top of her sex was visible then, buried like a pearl between pink folds. The elusive clitoris. He closed his eyes, and aimed blindly for it.

 _A, B, C_ … Ben exhaled heavily when he reached _Q_ , and she stiffened, her hips spasming for a second. _Q_ it was, then. He did it over and over, swirling his tongue for effect. This was much louder than he’d expected it to be – sloppy, slurping sounds harmonized with her little sighs and hums of satisfaction. It was a little distracting. Lifting his head, Ben rasped, “Should I put on some music?”

After a long second, Rey looked up. She looked almost dazed for a second, and then, indignant. “You – _no_! You can’t just stop! I was about to come!”

“Wait, really?” Ben couldn’t stop the delight from creeping into his voice. He ducked back down and resumed writing the letter _Q_ with the tip of his tongue. Against her, he said, slick-lipped, “You taste good.”

“You don’t have to say that.” Rey said, breathily. Ben’s nose bumped against the nub, and she made an undignified noise. The noise turned into a keen as he pursed his lips and sucked, keeping his teeth tucked away – the _ABC’s_ trick was a good one, he decided, but he didn’t want to _bite_ her. “Oh, I’m…”

Ben would have liked to hear the words themselves, but it was obvious what she meant, and what she was doing. Her thighs clenched around his ears, vicelike, and her pelvis bucked up into him, bruising his nose. He kissed her belly button, over and over, so proud of himself he felt he could fly.

A hand knotted in his hair. Panting, Rey managed, “Condom?”

Ben looked up. “I thought you had it?”

Still in a post-orgasmic haze, Rey stared down at him for a moment. Then, she said, almost frantically, “Pants.”

Ben turned her pockets inside out, his hands shaking. He found it, stuck it between his lips for safe-keeping, and tore his shirt off over his head without bothering to unbutton it. He unbuttoned his pants and kicked them down, tugged his briefs down over his hard-on, and took a fortifying breath.

When he turned around Rey had taken off the rest of her clothes, too. She didn’t look the least bit embarrassed. He realized the condom packet was still in his mouth. He took it out, ears burning.

Rey held her hand out and took the condom. She ripped it and went to place the rolled condom on the tip of his cock. At the last minute, she stopped, leaned forward, and kissed the head of his member. Ben’s heart stopped.

It must have started beating again, because he could hear it in his ears as he climbed back onto the bed and between her legs. It was an out of body experience. He felt like he was someone else. This couldn’t be happening to him. This beautiful, _naked_ girl wouldn’t be wrapping her legs around his hips. She wouldn’t be reached down between their bodies, her fingers playing with the trail of hair along his belly. She wouldn’t be tugging his erect cock down from where it was standing up against his stomach.

Rey was slippery, and so were the sheets. As the head of him breached her, Ben’s knees scrabbled for purchase. They both held their breaths – him, trying not to orgasm only three inches deep, and her, reacting to his girth – and when they exhaled, in tandem, in each other’s faces, he’d bottomed out.

Ben blinked down at her. He’d been so worried about that moment. He couldn’t quite believe it had been that easy.

If penetrating her had been easy, though, thrusting into her was not. He couldn’t get the right angle without looking like a frog. When he straightened his legs out, he started to slip down the bed and out of her. Flustered, and desperate to be deeper, Ben reached over her head and grasped his headboard, hoisting himself higher on the bed with a grunt. Rey’s hips rolled up and back as he pulled himself up and into her.

“Fuck.” Ben moaned. She choked out the same word. His balls slapped ungracefully against her bottom with the force of his next thrust, and, a second later, his knuckles were battered between the headboard and the wall. This time, when he yelled an obscenity, it was in pain, not sexual ecstasy. “Fuck!”

Rey’s eyes opened in alarm. She saw him cradling his injured hand close to his chest and took it between both of hers. She examined the purpling bruise on his knuckles. Very gently, she kissed it.

Frustrated and embarrassed, Ben let his head drop to her shoulder. He felt feverishly warm and dangerously close to coming, despite how disastrous their physical congress had been so far. Rey’s hands stroked the nape of his neck, as if she knew he was furious with himself and wanted to comfort him. Somehow that made it worse.  She kissed the spot behind his ear and spoke to him like he was a spooked horse. “Easy.”

Ben groaned into her shoulder. He wanted to apologize – this was no good, he was no good at this – but she soothed him with peppered little kisses along his shoulder. “ _Easy_. In, out.”

He did as she said, half-heartedly at first. After a few shallow thrusts, their hips lined up right, and she let out a happy little sigh. His dejection melted away, and he began to work in earnest. _In, out. In, out_. It wasn’t slow, exactly, but there was a natural rhythm to it, as if what they were doing was the most instinctual and obvious thing in the world.

Rey was still holding his bruised hand between her sweaty breasts. She moved it down her stomach, into the thatch of hair between her legs. She felt as if she was split open on him, spread wide to take his member, and so finding her clit was easy. He rubbed it earnestly, not sure if he was making a letter or any shape at all. Regardless, after a few moments, she spasmed gently around him, like the aftershock of an earthquake.

“I’m going to come.” Ben heard himself say, head spinning. When porn stars said that, it sounded sexy. He just sounded frantic. He looked at his clock on the bedside table. It had been seven minutes. Long enough, and he’d needed to come from the moment he’d been inside of her. Every muscle in his body tightened, and every nerve seemed to thrum with anticipation. He let go. The heaviness in his abdomen released in steady intervals, flooding the inside of the condom with hot semen and flooding his consciousness with what he could only describe as blissful relief.

Suddenly, he felt very heavy. He didn’t realize until Rey made a soft, disgruntled noise, that he _was_  very heavy, and he was on top of her. Somehow, he had the coordination to ease out of the clench of her body, feeling sticky and sensitive, and roll onto his back. His spend dribbled down the side of the condom and into the hair at the base of his softening cock.

He wondered what he was supposed to say, at a time like this. Nothing seemed significant enough, except for – no, he couldn’t say _that_. It was too soon.

 “Hi.” He blurted out, when he finally worked up the courage to look over at her.

Rey laughed, sounding sleepy. She scooted closer, and tucked her body into his side. “Hi, Ben.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, I'm continuing with my headcanon of Ben Solo is Good at Giving Head and Not Much Else. 
> 
> P.S. Writing sex from a dude's perspective is hard! Especially awkward, nervous, not-that-sexy sex. If you're a longtime reader, you know I don't do porn-style sex. This scene might take the cake as my *most* awkward sex scene ever, though. I need a drink. 
> 
> P.P.S. Comments shorten my writer's refractory period (ha ha) and Ben's refractory period, too.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey slept. Ben couldn’t.

His bed smelled like sex and a woman – more specifically, like Rey. Clean, not particularly flowery, but distinctly feminine. He hoped it would smell that way for days. He hoped it would always stay that way. He’d never wash his sheets.

Or, Rey could just never leave his bed.

Those were the kind of thoughts he had to be careful to keep to himself. She’d think he was crazy if she knew how strong his feelings were already – not _clinically_ crazy, but crazy, nonetheless. It was just another secret to keep from her. A secret that maybe he’d tell her, one a day.

Ben propped himself up on his elbow, studying the curvature of Rey’s bare back. The sun had set and it was dim. The sheet pooled around her waist. His arm slid perfectly into the warm dip of it as he wrapped himself around her. He nuzzled blindly at her messy, bed-headed hair until his lips met the hollow at the base of her skull.

Rey stirred, her elbow poking him in the ribs. Her face was half-buried in his pillow. It was the pillow he never used, the one of the right side of the bed. He privately thought of it as _her_ pillow, already. He wanted it to be her pillow.

Her voice was thick with sleep and incredulity, even if she’d only dozed for a few hours. “Are you… smelling my hair?”

“Your shampoo smells good.” Ben said, getting some hair in his mouth as he spoke. He was glad she couldn’t see his face. He was blushing. He could feel it – his cheeks were warm. His belly was suddenly warm, too, as she shifted against him, the backs of her naked thighs pressed against his quadriceps and groin.

Rey groaned into the pillow. “I haven’t washed my hair and I smell like sex.”

“You smell good.” Ben kissed the back of her neck and then inhaled, deeply, his mouth open and his nose smushed against the bump at the top of her spine. Her skin tasted a little salty. He liked the smell and taste of sex on her. It was a reminder of what they’d done. This was his drug of choice, he decided – sweaty, sated Rey.

Rey squirmed against his forearm, her bottom rubbing against his crotch. If she was doing that on purpose to arouse him, well, it was working. “Stop it, you weirdo.”

Ben mouthed sloppily at the back of her neck, and she squealed his name, squirming against his chest. Normally, that word would bother him, like the words _psycho_ or _crazy_ did. He was too turned-on to care much. “Ben!”

Crooking his arm, he found her breast and cupped it, thumbing her nipple as he kept laving hot, wet kisses on the back of her neck. This time, his name was a happy little sigh. “Ben…”

Still, Rey kept squirming. She squirmed until he reluctantly let her go. Then, she rolled over, got on her hands and knees, and crawled half-way over his body. Ben was admiring how she looked in that position – admiring, and imagining – when he realized that she was extending her arm, reaching for the pull of the bedside table drawer.

Ben panicked. She couldn’t look in _there._ That was where he kept his Risperdal.

Acting on instinct, Ben threw his arm around Rey’s midsection and dragged her backwards across the mattress. He all but threw her onto her back, back on _her_ side of the bed, where she belonged, and rolled on top of her, pinning her with his arms and his legs. This time, when she said his name, it was with a little _oof._ “Ben!”

Rey glared up at him, but he thought she looked a little aroused. Her arms, so weak compared to his, flailed uselessly on the mattress under the grip of his hands. Her hips bucked under his. His reaction had been one of panic, but his body had its own reaction. He playfully wrestled her deeper into the mattress, rotating his hips back and forth until they were snug between her thighs.

"I was just getting another condom.” Rey told him, trying to sound annoyed but just sounding breathy. “Unless you don’t want to have sex again.”

Rey was teasing him. She knew he wanted to – he was stiff against her belly already. Ben humored her with a kiss on the cheek and went to the bathroom. When he crawled back onto the bed, she threw the weight of her body against him, tilting him over and onto his back. He let her win this round of their play-fight.

When she had him subdued, Rey reached down and ruffled his hair affectionately, as if he was a little boy. He was willing to let her be on top – more than willing, actually – but he was a man, not a little boy. He felt like he needed to prove that to her. The round haunch of her ass fit perfectly in his hand. He spanked it, as if _she_ was a little girl, maybe a little too enthusiastically. The sound reverberated through his bedroom.

Rey popped straight up from where she’d been kissing his collarbone, her mouth perfectly round. “Oh!”

“Uh.” Ben stammered. “That wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for.”

“That was not nice.” Rey reproached him, snaking one arm behind her back and rubbing her backside.

“I’m sorry.” Ben’s hands fluttered nervously at her hips. “I’m – I’ll won’t do it again if – ”

Rey huffed, and bent down again, shutting him up with her tongue in his mouth. She let his hand soothe the red mark on her ass as she rolled the condom onto his quivering shaft. Against his mouth, she told him, “Be _nice_.”

“I’m, I – _oh_.” Ben forgot to keep apologizing as she rose on her knees and eased the head of his member into her, holding it delicately in place with two fingers until the backs of her thighs bumped his hip-bones. “That feels nice.”

“Just nice?”

“Fucking _incredible_.” The words came out low and growly and made her laugh as she started to rock gently against him. “I’m sorry for smacking you.”

“Stop apologizing and start – ” Rey cut off as he jerked upwards into her, not sure how to thrust without unseating her. It took a bit of trial and error – she could grind down into him, or he could push up into her, but he quickly realized they couldn’t do _both_ at the same time. Soon enough, he realized that she was light enough to guide up and down with his hands. As he moved her more forcefully, she held one breast in each hand. He grabbed her forearms and held them out of the way, to either side of her body.

“I like seeing your – ” Ben stopped short, almost losing his nerve. He couldn’t say _boobs_ ; that would make him sound like a twelve-year-old. The whole point of talking dirty was to sound virile and experienced. “ – tits bounce.”

Still holding her arms, he looked down the plane of his stomach, to the half-inch of his cock that he could still see even when she plunged down onto him. He kept talking; he didn’t sound like himself. “I like watching you bounce up and down on my cock.”

Rey was a little out of breath. “Don’t."

“Don’t what?” Ben stopped her and sat up, suddenly nervous that he’d done something wrong.

“Try to be something you’re not.” She brushed his hair away from his face, studied his features for a second, and then kissed the side of his nose. “I like _you_. I _really_ like you.”

Ben might have said it just because he was still inside her wet, contracting body, and his balls were starting to feel tight and heavy, but – “I really love you.”

Rey’s eyes went wide for a moment, and then she laughed, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck. Her sweaty breasts pressed against his chest. “That’s the Ben I know.”

“Always saying the wrong thing?” Ben asked, ruefully, his red face hidden in her neck. He’d blurted out his second secret without meaning to, but he’d meant what he’d said.

Rey leaned back, pecked the bridge of his nose, and started to roll her hips against his again. “That wasn’t the wrong thing to say.”

As if she could tell he still needed reassuring, she peppered kisses across his shoulder. Still hiding his face, Ben wrapped his arm around her back to hold her in place and exhaled, slowly, onto her skin. They rocked together, each in turn snaking a hand down between her legs, until she seized up, sighed, and went boneless atop him.

Ben tightened his grip around her, bracing himself with one arm. He almost said it again as he came, a few heartbeats later. He had to bit into his lip and then her shoulder not to.

***

“Are you going to fall asleep again?” Ben asked, when they were drowsing in the afterglow.

Rey yawned. “Yes.”

Ben chuckled at the ceiling, absently playing with her hair. “Sex, sleep, repeat.” He could get used to that sequence, he decided. Rey’s belly growled, as if to remind them it was not to be forgotten.

“Sex, sleep, eat.” Rey corrected him. “And repeat.”

Ben glanced down at her, suddenly ashamed of himself. “I didn’t even buy you dinner first.”

Rey blinked sleepily up at him. “I didn’t expect you to.”

“That bothers me.” Ben said, after a moment. “That you don’t expect me to buy you dinner first.”

Rey shifted, uncomfortable, under the weight of his arm. “You can buy me dinner before the next time we have sex.”

Ben looked back at the ceiling. Impulsively, he told her, “Let’s get dressed, then.”

“What?” Rey sat up, confused, as he climbed out of bed.

“I’m taking you to dinner.” He explained. “And then we can come back here and have sex again.”

***

Ben fidgeting while Rey was in the shower. He had too much adrenaline in his system to sit still. He was glad the only mirror in his apartment was in his bathroom – otherwise, he’d have to catch glimpses of the stupid grin on his face while he paced. He couldn’t wipe that grin off his face.

“Ben?”

He hadn’t realized the shower had stopped running. Wet-haired, Rey was standing in the hall. She had a funny look on her face. Her expression cut through Ben’s overwhelming sense of sexual satisfaction. His mouth went dry when he saw what she was clutching –  a green rectangular box and piece of paper, folded many times over and covered in tiny print.

It was the package insert from his latest box of Risperdal pills. He’d thrown it in the bathroom trash bin, two days ago, when his new blister pack had come in the mail. He always threw away the box and the insert. He didn’t like to look at them. He preferred just looking at the nameless pills.

For a moment, he was angry that she’d looked through his bathroom. Then, he realized he didn’t have anyone to blame but himself. He’d been so careful about hiding the pills from her. He’d left the box and insert in all but plain sight.

Rey didn’t ask the question that was written so clearly on her face, but Ben answered it, anyways. For the first time in years, he used the words. His voice sounded higher pitched and more formal than it usually did. “I have schizoaffective disorder.”

“What?” Rey looked at the package insert as if she couldn’t read English.

“I have schizoaffective disorder.” Ben repeated, without bothering to explain. He didn’t want to explain. He didn’t want her to _know_ all of the sordid details of his mental illness.

Rey looked confused. “You’re… a schizophrenic?”

“No, I _have_ schizoaffective disorder.” Ben said, for the third time. Every time he used those two words that made up his diagnosis, Rey flinched a little and something hopeful inside him died. It was an important distinction for him to make, though – his mental illness was something he _had_ , not something he _was_. He wished he could make her see that.

“You have schizophrenia.” Rey’s eyes darted all over the room, as if she was looking for a escape, and Ben was suddenly afraid to come any closer. “You have split personalities?”

“That’s a common misconception.” Ben said, stiffly, inexplicably annoyed by the fact that she didn’t have anything other than a colloquial understanding of the words she was using. “Schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder aren’t the same thing. And I don’t have _fucking_ schizophrenia – ”

Ben caught himself, tamping down his frustration and anger. He didn’t want to lash out at her, but his choices were fight or flight, and there was nowhere to run to. He put his hand over his mouth for a second, biting into the fleshy part of his palm. “I have _schizoaffective disorder_ and I only have one personality.” Rey was looking at him as if he was some sort of monster. His voice cracked, pleadingly. “Just Ben.”

She looked back at the package insert. “This… this is an antipsychotic.”

The word made him flinch. "Yes.”

“You’re… psychotic?” The fear in her voice was like a punch to his guts.

“I’ve had psychotic episodes.” Ben rasped. He felt like he might vomit.

In a sudden, jerky movement, Rey was hurrying towards his door, bolting like a scared deer. “I have to go –”

“No, please, Rey… ” Ben followed Rey and caught her arm. As she whirled around, she looked terrified. Not apprehensive, but truly terrified. He’d lunged at her. “I’m still me. I’m not a…”

 _Psycho._ The word hung in the air.

“I’m still just Ben.” He whispered, wondering whether he would wither and die if she walked out the door, in an instant, or whether it would be a slow and painful death. Either way, he couldn’t live with himself if she left.

Rey hesitated, her throat bobbing. She shook her head, over and over, as if she was unable to speak. Finally, she pulled her arm out of his grip. Too late, Ben realized that that had been the last time he would touch her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I giveth smut and fluff, I taketh smut and fluff away. I'm very sorry. 
> 
> P.S. Before anyone calls Rey a heartless bitch, I work with mentally ill people for a living and even I would flip my shit if I found out someone I was in a relationship with had a serious mental illness. She's human. It's a scary diagnosis. 
> 
> P.P.S. I wrote a one-shot sequel in the Parenthood series - check it out, if you haven't already (A/N: content warning). 
> 
> P.P.S. If you haven't read "Lockjaw" or "Infinite Doors" just do it.
> 
> P.P.P.S. A lot of you correctly diagnosed Ben!


	8. Chapter 8

Ben laid on his couch all night, staring at the ceiling. He was unwilling to go back in his bedroom. His sheets still smelled like her, and he couldn’t sleep, in any case. He never could, when he was depressed. He felt tired – so tired – but he couldn’t sleep.

This feeling was familiar. It didn’t frighten him. He welcomed it like a houseguest, from time to time. Before he’d started on a course of antidepressants, depressive episodes had been the rhythm of his life. Now that he took pills that were supposed to fix him, the depression was arrhythmic. It was triggered, occasionally – by spending Christmas alone, or by hearing about the death of an old friend he’d long lost touch with.

He’d been able to cope for years by distancing himself from anything that might trigger his depression. _That_ particular coping mechanism had been shot to hell by Rey.

Ben rolled over on the couch, his back aching. He stared out the window, numbly. It was almost eight in the morning – he’d be late for work if he didn’t stand up right this second. This was the turning point – he could try to fight the inevitable heaviness in his limbs and overwhelming sense of helpless he felt, or he could succumb. It would pass. It always did.

He reached for his cell phone and flicked it on. For a moment, he wondered if Rey had called or texted him. She hadn’t. He wanted to call her, but instead, he called the office and told the receptionist that he had appendicitis. Better to let his employer think he was sick in body than know he was sick in the head.

“I hope you feel better soon.” His receptionist had said, sincerely.

Ben hung up the phone without comment. He would _never_ get better. He could fool himself into thinking that he was better – that he could keep a job and go on dates and have sex and fall in love – but his mental illness was always tugging on his ankles, ready to drag him down the moment something went wrong. And inevitably, something went wrong.

At first, Ben had been afraid that, if Rey found out about his diagnosis, she would expose his secret. Now, he didn’t much care if she did. He’d been terrified that he would lose his job, the only thing that made him feel normal and productive. Losing Rey hurt more than losing a job would hurt. It felt like losing all hope for the future.

No one would ever love him, he realized. People would only hurt him. Somebody was trying to hurt him –

Ben’s breath hitched. That last thought had crept, unbidden, into his stream of self-pitying consciousness. It didn’t logically follow, but for a split-second, he’d believed it. He recognized it for what it was: paranoia.

He was sliding into a depressive episode – that was inevitable. He could feel it, almost physically. His limbs felt heavy. But _paranoia_ wasn’t part and parcel of depression. It was a symptom of psychosis.

Panicking, Ben rolled off the couch onto his hands and knees, fumbling for his cell-phone. He’d dropped it, hopelessly, after calling in sick.

“Gwen.” Ben choked out his psychologist’s name, when she picked up. “I need to go to the emergency room.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Rey – Rey left me.” Ben managed. The line was silent for a second. He thought he heard Gwen make a sympathetic sound, or maybe, he imagined it. Maybe that stomping upstairs wasn’t real. Maybe the creak of the pipes wasn’t real. Maybe he was hallucinating, or maybe he was just convincing himself that he was hallucinating. Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. “I need to go to the emergency room.”

Gwen skipped the obvious question – _are you decompensating?_ The answer must have been obvious. “Are you having prodromal symptoms?”

“Maybe." Gwen had told him, over and over, that he couldn’t live his life in fear of another psychotic episode. But he _knew_ that prodromal symptoms heralded the onset of acute psychosis. Eight years ago, he hadn’t recognized that. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

"Ben-"

“I’m afraid…” His voice broke and suddenly he was crying, the way he never allowed himself to in front of anyone – not even Gwen. He wasn’t crying over Rey, exactly, but rather over the bitter reality of his life. “I’m so afraid it will happen again.”

***

The community mental health center was utterly quiet. It was quiet enough that Ben started to wonder whether he was hearing things that weren’t really there every time a nurse wheeled a cart down the hall or someone laughed. It wasn't a sterile, secure mental hospital. It was for people who were in-between - not dangerous to themselves or others, but not quite right.

“Ben?”

That was Rey’s voice, behind him. Surely _that_ was a hallucination.

“Ben?”

This time, he turned around. Rey was standing on the threshold of the private room, pale-faced. Her lower lip was trembling slightly.

Ben was suddenly deeply embarrassed. He’d never intended for her to see him like this. Even if she’d stomped on his heart, he still cared what she thought. At least he wasn’t wearing a hospital gown, or three days’ worth of sweat and grime. He hadn’t withdrawn from himself so much that he didn’t care about hygiene. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard you had appendicitis.” Rey said, her voice wobbling. She didn’t come into the room.

“I don’t have appendicitis.” Ben said, because he didn’t know what else to say. This clearly wasn’t a facility where physical ailments were treated. 

“I went to the hospital and you weren’t there.” Rey said, after a long moment. She spoke as if she was trying to defend herself, or to prove to him that she wasn’t heartless. “And then I went to your apartment. You weren’t answering your phone. I thought…”

“What did you think?” Ben asked, dully. He felt too embittered to rejoice in her concern. “That I’d killed myself?”

“I know schizo – I’m sorry, people with your – ” She fumbled over her words, nervously, and he realized, for the first time, that she’d brought _flowers._ He almost laughed because it was such a ridiculous thing to do.

“You can say it.” Ben turned back to the window, settling deeper into his musty-smelling armchair. He liked this chair. He didn’t want to move to leave his room, but he hated lying in bed like an invalid.

“People with schizoaffective disorder are statistically more likely to commit suicide.” Rey said, formally, as if she was quoting Wikipedia.

“You can use Google.” Ben commented, wondering what else she’d learned about his diagnosis. He couldn’t help but wonder if her research had made her more or less afraid of him. His voice sounded caustic and bitter. “Congratulations.”

He didn’t look back at her, and for a moment he thought she’d left the room. Rey seemed hurt, when she finally spoke again. She asked, in a small voice, “Is this my fault?”

“Yes.” Ben said, simply. He heard the floors creak as Rey took a step into the room, as if she was dipping her toe into cold water. She set the flowers down on the sideboard, fussing with them so she didn’t have to make eye contact.

“You didn’t have to bring flowers.” He heard himself saying. “I’m not dead.”

“You’re sick.” Rey told him, her back to him. “That’s what you do when someone is sick.”

“Schizoaffective disorder isn’t like fucking appendicitis, Rey.” Ben told her, ire rising.

Rey turned to face him. Her eyes were glassy. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh, come the fuck on.” Ben leaned his head back on the back of the chair. He closed his eyes, remembering the fear on her face when she’d read the word _psychotic._ “You know why.”

They were silent for a long time, and then Rey asked, “Why are you here?”

“Because I’m _sick_.” Ben hated that word. He’d hated it even more when she’d said it.

“That’s not what your psychologist said.” Rey told him, after a beat.

Ben looked over his shoulder at her, sharply. “What?”

“Your psychologist called me.” Rey admitted. “She said you _asked_ her to check you in here.”

Ben looked away. He had; he’d all but begged Gwen to put him in an inpatient facility for a few days, even though he was stable and his bloodwork was normal. His insurance would only cover inpatient care if she referred him to it. The initial forty-eight hour crisis hold that she’d begrudgingly agreed to had expired. He could check himself out; he hadn’t.

Ben looked at his hands, flexing them slowly. He couldn’t explain why he’d wanted so desperately to be here unless he started from the very beginning. It wasn’t a story he’d told before. Even Gwen had only heard it in bits and pieces over the course of his treatment.

“It happened slowly, and then all at once, last time.” He said, finally.

“What happened?” Rey asked, perching on the edge of his bed, across the room from him.

“The… onset of psychosis.” Ben took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m going to use a lot of technical words.”

“I’ll stop you if I don’t understand.” Rey told him.

“I don’t think you can ever understand.” Ben exhaled, slowly. “I was depressed in high school. My parents thought it was normal teenager stuff, you know? I didn’t ever talk to anybody about it. When I went to college, I started having prodromal symptoms. I didn’t know what they were, but that’s what they were.”

“Like what?”

Ben could think of a hundred examples. “I withdrew from my friends. I smelled and tasted things differently, if that makes sense. I had auditory hallucinations. I lived in this dorm. I had a neighbor and I’d always hear him moving around. In the middle of the night I’d hear him – stomping around, playing music. Eventually I could make out talking. It was like he was talking to me, right in my ear. I’d stay awake all night listening, and then I wouldn’t go to class. I didn’t even want to go down the hallway to shower. I was scared to leave my room. I had… well, the technical term is paranoid delusions.”

“Like what?”

Ben dug his nails into his palms. He remembered those delusions perfectly. “It’s… easier to use the technical term than to give you specific examples.”

“Okay.” Rey said, so quietly he barely heard her. She waited.

In a rush, Ben went on. “You know how you don’t notice that you’ve gotten older or gained weight, but then someone sees you who hasn’t seen you in a long time? I didn’t even realize how bad things had gotten until I went home for the summer. My parents were scared. I heard them talking about me, at night, when I was in my bedroom. I still don’t know what I _really_ heard and what I thought I heard. But I just… snapped.”

He didn’t tell her what that meant – what that _snap_ had been. It was a violent, sharp word. It was a fitting word for what he’d done. He stopped telling the story at that point; its end was too painful.

“There’s three stages of psychosis.” He said, finally, trying remain academic and impersonal, even though this was the most personal thing he’d ever told anyone. “The prodrome – that lasted almost a year. Acute psychosis only lasted for a week. I spent most of that week in a mental hospital.” He swallowed hard. “And I’ve been in recovery for eight years. Eight years, and I’m still afraid…”

“That it will happen again?” Rey was gripping the edge of the thin mattress with all ten of her fingers. “Is that why you’re here?”

Ben looked over at her, afraid of what he’d see. She looked like she might cry.

“Last time, I had parents who loved me. I had friends and professors and a room-mate and a girlfriend.” His voice broke, pathetically. “I asked to be checked in here because I wanted to be monitored, just in case. Because this time there’d be no one to…”

Rey’s face softened, and the tears that had puckered in the corners of her eyes leaked out. For a moment, he hated her for pitying him when _she_ had triggered this.

“I’d be alone.” Ben cleared his throat. He tried to be stoic, despite the crushing truth of that sentence weighing heavy in his chest.

Rey moved closer. As he tried hard to look past her, not _at_ her, Ben found himself looking at the flowers again. They were all white and pale pink. Like her _stupid_ succulents, they were beauty for beauty’s sake. Bringing them had been _stupid._ But it had also been very much in keeping with Rey. She liked beautiful things just because they were beautiful. They made her happy. She’d brought him beautiful flowers naively hoping that they would make him as happy as they made her, even if he was in the throes of a depressive episode.

“Thank you for the flowers.” He said, finally, stiffly. That was as close as he could come to thanking her for finding him and coming to him, and for listening to his sad, strange, fragmented story.

Ben flinched when he felt Rey’s hand stroke the top of his hair. She did it very carefully, as if he was a wild animal. When he didn’t rear up and bite her, her hand stopped trembling and sunk into his curls. Ben closed his eyes, hating himself for leaning like a housecat into her touch. It felt so _good_ to be touched as if she wasn’t afraid of him.

Finally, Rey said, “You’re not alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof. This was a heavy one. Schizoaffective disorder (well, psychosis in general) is by all accounts very difficult to describe. Unfortunately, until there is a full-blown psychotic episode, it can also be very hard to diagnose. Ben, like so many adolescent males, slipped through the cracks and went untreated. Even though he's well-medicated and in intensive therapy, he's desperately afraid that will happen again, and that he'll have to face a psychotic episode alone.
> 
> P.S. Ben isn't ready to share yet, but there's (obviously) more to the story he told her.


	9. Chapter 9

“How’s the food here?” Rey asked, before she left.

Ben thought about his answer for a second. The food was mediocre, and served with a sympathetic smile. It wasn’t much worse than what he made in his compact apartment kitchen. Still, he wanted to give her an excuse to come back. That was what Gwen would call a _positive thing_.

He cleared this throat. “Terrible.”

***

His ploy worked. The next day, Rey came back, with takeout from Mama Foo’s. She sat, cross-legged, on the edge of his bed and he sat in his arm-chair. The rooms at the inpatient facility didn’t accommodate visitors well. It was an isolating place, despite the yellow paint’s earnest attempt to be cheerful.

They ate in companionable silence. Ben picked at his food; Rey scarfed hers down with gusto. When she was done eating, she asked, nonchalantly, “When will you be back in the office?

Ben fiddled with his chopsticks. He’d been in the inpatient facility for ninety-six hours. It was like a safe cocoon, where he didn’t have to constantly be on guard, because someone else was. Here, he was safe from the consequences of his mental illness. “Do I still have a job?”

“You have appendicitis.” Rey said, softly. “No one loses their job because they have appendicitis.”  

Ben counted the hours he’d been voluntarily committed, in his head. He couldn’t stretch that excuse out much longer. Appendicitis was a temporary thing. Schizoaffective disorder was not. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Not telling anyone.” Ben twirled his chopstick between two fingers. He tried to force down another bite of food, to show her that he appreciated her bringing it – or rather, that he appreciated her being there. He never made much of an appetite during depressive episodes. The fact that he’d stomached a few bites of Kung Pao chicken was another _positive thing._

Rey shrugged, as if her loyal silence didn’t mean anything. It did, to him. He’d never entrusted his secret to anyone except Gwen, and she was paid handsomely to put up with him.

“Ben?” Rey cocked her head, and repeated his name to get his attention. She’d been talking about something – something to do with work. Some project he was supposed to be managing. It was floundering along without him. During depressive episodes, he couldn’t bring himself to care about work. He must have been staring blankly at the yellow wall. “Where did you go?”

“What?” Ben asked, absently. 

Rey’s smile faltered, and her voice was suddenly a little high-pitched, as if she was afraid. “Were you having an auditory hallucination?”

Annoyed, Ben attacked his Kung Pao chicken with his chopsticks, spearing it but not eating it. “Goddamnit, Rey, this is why I didn’t want you to _know_. Once people know I have – I have this disorder, every time, every fucking _little_ thing, people think I’m going to go psychotic and go on a killing spree or something.”

Rey’s looked defensive for a moment, and then wary. “I didn’t _say_ that. Why… why would I think that?”

Ben sucked in a lungful of air, realizing his mistake. His outburst had been sarcastic, but there was a kernel of truth to it. He’d stopped telling her his story before it had gotten to _that_ part. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Fear flickered across her face like a shadow. She’d put two-and-two together. “When you said you snapped – ”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Ben’s appetite was gone completely. He stood up and threw the remainder of the Kung Pao chicken in the trash, spitefully.  She’d come back, and he’d ruined it. She’d mirrored his courting rituals – bring him flowers and Kung Pao chicken, the way he had brought her a miniature ficus and fried rice – and he’d picked a fight.

“Maybe it’ll help to talk about it.” Rey prodded. Her eyes burned into his back, as if she was studying him. Ben hunched further over himself, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at the wasted, thrown-away food. He felt like _that_ , right now – no good to anyone or for anything.  
  
“No, it won’t.”

 _It’ll make you afraid of me_ , Ben wanted to explain. _More afraid than you already are._

He kept his arms wrapped snugly around his torso, as if they were the only thing holding him together. The grief was so heavy in his chest it might split open, if he didn’t hold himself together. He turned back to face her, trying to explain why her well-meaning questions hurt him so much. “You’re not a psychologist. I _have_ a psychologist. I don’t want you to treat me like a patient or a project.”

“How do you want me to treat you?” Rey was looking at him with guarded compassion.

“Like… like I have appendicitis.” His voice broke, along with his anger, as he remembered how she’d looked at him just _days_ ago – with affection, with lust, with a teasing glint in her eye. She’d looked at him like she trusted him. Like he could take care of her, not like he needed to be taken care of. “I want you to treat me like a man.”

Rey stood up and crossed the room in quick, short steps. For a bewildered moment, Ben thought she was going to hit him. She didn’t. Instead, she grabbed him by a fistful of his hair and yanked him down to where she could reach his mouth, knocking him off kilter. Her kiss was almost violent. He could feel her teeth at first, and then the silky, apologetic stroke of her tongue. “You’re still a man.”  

Her kiss was a dare. Ben felt like a coward. They couldn’t do that _here_. “I…”

“Come home, Ben.” Rey tugged the hair at the nape of his neck, as if she would keep a hold of it and drag him out of the facility by it. He had the feeling she wouldn’t let go until he agreed to leave with her. “It’s just appendicitis.”

***

Ben’s apartment smelled musty, even though he’d only been gone for four days. He’d left the lights on and the sink dripping. Rey muttered to herself, fluttering around and neatening the place. It was an odd thing to see. Ben had never pegged her for a domestic goddess, but she seemed possessed by an urge to nurture and nest.

Feeling inexplicably tired, he laid down on his couch, folding his hands over his chest and staring at the ceiling. His ceiling loomed over him, as flat and reactionless as it had been as he’d laid on the couch and cried the night she’d left.

For a moment, Ben wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing – the yellow but somehow still depressing room at the mental health facility, the flowers, the Kung Pao chicken. Then Rey appeared in his line of vision, leaning over him. “Are you sleepy?”

“Yes.” Ben lied. He just wanted to lie down.

“You should get in bed.” Rey’s brow creased, as she looked up and down the length of his body on the narrow, too-short couch. “You’ll hurt your back.”

“I’m fine here.” Ben closed his eyes, wondering whether she would leave him alone. Part of him didn’t _want_ her to. Gwen had increased his antidepressant dosage incrementally, and he was feeling less withdrawn. His Risperdal dosage was unchanged.

“Ben.” Rey touched his forehead as if she was checking his temperature – as if he really did have appendicitis. “Go to bed.”

“I’m _fine_.” Ben grumbled.

With a huff, Rey walked away. Ben opened one eye, to see whether she was walking towards the door. He didn’t really want her to leave again. She didn’t. Instead, she walked towards his bedroom. As she went, she peeled her shirt off over her head and dropped it. Craning her arms behind her back, she unclipped her bra, and looked over her shoulder. She changed her wording, just slightly. “Come to bed.”

Ben only wrestled with the urge to wallow in self-pity for a moment longer. He followed her to the bedroom, leaning on the wall for support. Totally naked, Rey waited for him in the middle of his mattress.

Ben gripped the doorframe. He cursed his insight into his mental illness, in that moment. It was the only thing stopping him. He wanted her, but he didn’t want to become dependent on her. That would be as destructive as self-medicating with drugs or alcohol. “Sexual healing isn’t going to work on me, Rey. You can call it appendicitis to make me feel better, but I have a mental illness. It’s… permanent.”

Rey leaned forward, wrapping her arms round her knees. “Did you know decompensation is when people with schizoaffective disorder are under stress that they can’t – ”

“Rey.” Ben interrupted her, more exasperated than angry. It was impossible to be angry when she was naked. “You’re not my psychologist.”

Rey ignored him. “Sex is a good way to cope with stress. So keep taking your pills, and take off your clothes.”

Ben laughed, despite himself. He doggedly made his way over to the bed, pulling off items of clothing as he went. Moving from one piece of furniture to the next seemed to sap all of his energy.

“You don’t have to.” He told her, as she thumbed the waistband of his briefs, leaning over to kiss the half-hearted bulge tucked away in them.

Rey pressed him down onto his back, and looked up at him through her lashes. She didn’t sound seductive, but rather, confessional, as if she knew what she was talking about and how he felt. “I want to make you feel human again.”

Intimacy felt different, like during a depressive episode. The first time they’d had sex, Ben had been hyper-aware of everything, especially his own inadequacies. He’d been high on adrenaline and so nervous that his nerve endings _twitched_. When he was depressed, everything moved a bit more slowly, as if he was underwater.

Still, Ben felt _her_ , as she trailed wet kisses down his neck. He felt her teeth on his earlobe. He felt the tip of her nose as she nuzzled the nest of hair under the waistband of his underwear. He felt her warm breath as she kissed his hip-bone, over and over, her hand curling around his half-hard penis inside his underwear until it was whole-hard. He felt her lashes tickle the skin at the base of his belly as she drew him in and impossibly further in to her mouth. He felt the soft back of her throat against the head of his member, fleshy and yielding. He felt all these things a second or two after they happened, his reactions delayed.

Ben closed his eyes, but this time, it wasn’t to block out the light. He closed his eyes because he wanted to focus on what he felt. He wanted to feel everything in the moment – the steady, bobbing rhythm of her mouth, the pulse of blood in the vein on the underside of his shaft. With his eyes closed, he could hear better, too. The sloppy, moist sounds made him blush like a teenager. 

Faster than he cared to admit, Ben felt his abdomen tense up and his balls tighten in heady anticipation. He thought, for a moment, about pushing her away and pinching his cock with two fingers, right under its head, to hold his orgasm off. He didn’t. Rey was right. He needed to feel human again. This felt filthy and visceral enough to make him feel like a flesh-and-blood human and a red-blooded _man_.

Ben should have been polite and pulled her away by her hair. No one had ever done this for him before, but he knew _that_ much. But it felt perversely comforting to ejaculate into her mouth and to feel her swallow. He couldn’t imagine his semen tasted good, or felt very pleasant in her throat, but she swallowed, anyways. It was strangely metaphorical. She was willing to inconvenience herself for _him_ , to focus on _his_ needs. She was willing to take the not-so-nice parts of him.

Like he was surfacing from deep underwater, Ben pulled Rey up and into his arms, holding her close to his chest. He cupped the back of her head with his hand, tangling it in her hair and holding her in place the way he hadn’t dared to as she’d sucked him off.

Rey stroked the sweat-damp hair off his face. She wore a look of utter contentment, even though _he_ had just had a hasty orgasm, and she hadn’t. “Your psychologist can’t do that.”

***

“You said you had a girlfriend, before.” Rey picked at a piece of lint on his coverlet, her voice carefully casual.

“Mmm hmm.” Ben hummed, noncommittally. He was petting her hair, enjoying the softness of her naked skin against his. They hadn’t had sex, but he was glad she’d taken her clothes off, all the same. They could be vulnerable and bare together. 

“She left you.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not exactly.” Ben wrapped a strand of hair around his index finger. “My mother told her to break it off. When I got discharged, she did.”

Rey propped herself up on her elbow, perplexed. “Why?

Ben knew what his mother had been afraid of. She’d been afraid that he would attack Alla, during a psychotic episode. She’d been afraid to have that on her conscience, knowing full-well what her son was capable of. “She was afraid she couldn’t… handle it.”

 _Rey_ didn’t know what he was capable of. She told him, naively and earnestly, as if she knew he was comparing her to Alla, “I think I can handle myself.”

Ben made a soft noise, amused by her stubbornness despite how _wrong_ she was. “I am not… easy to handle.”

After a beat, Rey told him, her accent making her voice lilt in the way he loved, “I think I handled you just fine.”

Ben snorted. “I mean – ”

“I know.” Rey nuzzled behind his ear, her leg wrapping around his waist. “And I’m stronger than I look.”

Ben pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the top of her head, and didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything he could say without scaring her. She _wasn’t_ strong enough – not physically, at least. She’d stand no chance, if she became the object of his paranoid delusions.

Despite the unease in his belly, the orgasm she’d given him did its good work. Ben fell asleep, for what seemed like the first time in days, and dreamed of his father.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey does believe in sexual healing. Rey is misguided. 
> 
> P.S. Go read "The World in Its Dark Grace." If you, like me, are a sucker for medieval fantasy, it's such fun.


	10. Chapter 10

Six days after he was discharged, and four days after he went back to the office, ducking and mumbling when colleagues asked how he felt now that he lacked an appendix, Ben woke up feeling happy. Happy, and horny. He blinked down at his morning wood, and then extended his index finger and poked it through the sheet, dubiously. It bobbed and then stood straight back up.

Ben stared at it for a second longer, and then lifted the sheet and peered under it. Satisfied that his libido wasn’t depressed anymore, he reached for his phone and called Rey. “Do you want to come over?”

There was a pause. Her voice was thick and sleepy. “Ben, it’s five-fifteen in the morning.”

Ben shifted his weight on his mattress. “Are you doing anything?”

“It’s _five-fifteen_ in the morning.” Rey repeated. She suddenly sounded more awake. “No, I’m not doing anything.”

***

Rey’s face was creased with worry when he opened the door. Ben realized that she’d assumed he was having some sort of crisis, and _that_ was why he’d called her at an ungodly hour. He felt badly, but something glowed warm in his chest – she’d rolled out of bed, hair a mess, and taken the bus to his apartment in her pajamas, because she cared. Just as she’d said, he wasn’t alone.

The panic on Rey’s face turned into confusion, when she realized that he was naked. Then, it morphed into disbelief, when she looked down and saw that his erection was poking towards her, unabashed. “Are you _serious_?”

Ben leaned on the doorframe, trying to hide his body behind it in case someone came down the hallway. “I’m serious.”

Rey looked like she wanted to yell at him but she was afraid if she opened her mouth she’d start laughing. He knew she was too happy that _he_ was happy to be annoyed. They hadn’t had sex since he’d signed the discharge paperwork at the inpatient center, his libido as depressed as his emotional state. She hadn’t pressed the issue, and for that, he was grateful. He’d let her take him in her mouth once more, and – whether it was a testament to her or to the newness of that particular pleasure – he’d slept, blissfully, afterward.

“Are you just going to stand there naked?” Rey asked, finally.

Ben wrapped and arm around her waist, pulled her into his apartment, and took her to bed. He’d felt so heavy for two weeks – too heavy to do anything but lie on the couch – but she was weightless in his arms. He only remembered she was flesh and blood when he dropped her onto his mattress and she made a confusingly erotic surprised sound.

The sound of surprise she made was even more arousing when he tugged her pajama pants down, folded her leg up against her belly and ribcage and entered her in two jerky, clumsy thrusts. He wasn’t sure if she was surprised that he was so impatient or that her body could bend that way. He knew it could – he’d seen it in _Cosmopolitan_.

“Condom.” Rey told him, trying to sound stern. Ben groaned with disappointment, and then, with pleasure, as his hips rocked against her, seemingly of their own accord. He’d forgotten to put one on, but now, he decided not to feel guilty. He couldn’t be held responsible for his irresponsible behavior when this felt so different – so much better – skin to skin.

“Please.” He huffed the word out, delirious with pleasure as he kept thrusting shallowly into her, gripping the knee he’d shoved up and out of his way. 

“ _Condom_.” She repeated, breathlessly, her t-shirt riding up.

“Do I have to?” Ben whined, stilling his hips contritely. “You feel so good.”

Rey worried her lip for a moment. “Don’t come inside me.”

It hadn’t occurred to Ben to do that, but now it sounded awfully appealing. His stomach muscles quivered with approval as he started to move faster. Her shirt rode higher and higher up her stomach as he thrust, the heel of his right hand bumping his cock as he rubbed at her. “I _really_ want to.”

“Don’t – _oh_.” Rey must have liked the idea, too, despite her practicality. Her protest dissolved into a drawn-out syllable as she squirmed her way through an orgasm, her face scrunched up. That felt better, too, without a condom – so much better than he nearly didn’t pull out in time. His spend splattered onto her belly and the hem of her t-shirt, staining it.

With a heaving sigh of relief – sexual relief and relief that he hadn’t committed the blunder of the century – Ben flopped onto his back. His was a pleasant exhaustion, a totally different animal from depressed exhaustion.

“We should do that more often.” He managed, a piece of his hair stuck in his mouth. The sun was rising, and the birds were singing. He already felt that today would be a good, productive day – the type of day when he answered all of his emails, asked how his secretary’s weekend had been, and did laundry after work. The mundane sounded wonderful, all of the sudden. He hadn’t felt that way in a long time.

Rey slapped at his shoulder, her hand limp and sleepy. “We should _not_ have unprotected sex more often.”

“We should have sex first thing in the morning more often.” Ben rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. He couldn’t argue with her logic, though. He wanted to throw the box of condoms out. He wanted to _burn_ it. “And why _aren’t_ you on the pill?”

Rey tucked her hands on her cheek. “I’ve never been… strictly monogamous.”

Ben blinked at her, confused. For an awful moment, he wondered if _they_ weren’t monogamous. “What?”

Rey’s cheek – the one he could see – colored. “I’m not worried about catching anything from you.”

Disgruntled, Ben rolled onto his back and looked at the ceiling. He didn’t particularly like thinking about her having been with other men, even though he knew it was perfectly normal. _He_ just wasn’t normal.

Rey touched his chest, tentatively, after the silence had stretched on for long enough. “Was she your first?”

“Who? First what?” Ben played dumb.

More insistent now, Rey nudged his ribs. “The girl who left you.”

“No.” Ben admitted, finally. He stared resolutely at the ceiling, hoping she would assume that Alla had been his second or third lover.

“So, before her…” Rey trailed off, uncertain.

Ben bit his tongue. This was even harder, in some ways, than telling her his diagnosis. It meant telling her that there was something wrong with him – something more than just a mental illness. He’d always felt that there was something wrong with him. He’d fumbled around in the backseat of cars and in dark movie theatres like a normal fifteen-year-old. Then, his crushing depression had set in and, unmedicated, crushed both his confidence and sex drive. By the time he’d been well-medicated, it had been too late. He’d sunk into self-preserving isolation, afraid of having his heart broken and his mind broken along with it. “No.”        

They were silent for a long time. Then Rey said, in a seeming non-sequitur, “Brad.”

“What?”

“Brad was my first.” She said, quietly. “I was fifteen.”

“That’s… young.” Ben could hardly imagine her being that young.

“My foster parents never hugged or kissed me. I wanted to be hugged and kissed and when he wanted a little more I gave it to him.” She exhaled, slowly, and then tapped her breastbone with two fingers. “I thought it wouldn’t matter that my parents didn’t love me, if someone loved me. And if I had sex with them, men would pretend to love me.”

“And did you ever love any of them?” Rey didn’t answer his question. Ben suspected that she hadn’t loved any of them – if she had, she would still be with him. He was glad, then, that she hadn’t ever been in love. He paused. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to this next question. “How many of _them_ were there?”

“Bill was the second.” Rey said, haltingly. “And then Killian. Andrew. Poe. Alexander. The second Alexander. Michael. Louis.” As she listed the names, she looked more and more dejected. Her voice became softer and softer. When she was done, she shrugged a little, as if to say, _now you know._ “Those are all the men I’ve had sex with.”

It occurred to Ben, for the first time, that Rey was as insecure as he was. He couldn’t fathom why; all he felt was overwhelming sadness for her – not pity or judgment. He’d been worried that she would pity him or judge him. He shouldn’t have been, if she felt for him a fraction of what he felt for _her._

“These are all the women I’ve ever loved.” Ben leaned over, propping himself up on one elbow, and kissed her nose. “Rey.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Rey.” Her mouth curved into a smile under his. They were going to be late for work. “Rey. Rey. Rey.”

***

Two weeks later, as they waited for the elevator, surrounded by colleagues, Ben watched Rey’s profile. She was chewing her lip, nervously. He’d driven her home from work every day that week. She’d directed him, every day, to take a detour down Thorn Street. It wasn’t far out of his way. About half-way down the street, she always asked him to slow down. She didn’t tell him to stop, but her nose practically touched the window as she watched the houses go by.

They left the office together, every day. Ben was sure their coworkers were suspicious. He had been a loner for so long. Betty from accounting had looked at him like he’d grown a second head when she saw him in the employee break room eating peanut butter and jelly with Rey.

It was high time he confirmed those suspicions. Ben slung his arm around her shoulders before he could lose his nerve. He was a little rough in his hurry. Rey nearly buckled under the weight. She looked up at him, wide-eyed.

Around them, their co-workers were wide-eyed, too. He saw them in the mirrored elevator doors. He saw himself, too, and Rey. They looked like they belonged together.

***

“Why are you stopping?” Rey asked, when he put his old sedan into park against the curb in front of 127 Thorn Street. This was her parent’s house; he was sure of it. It was well-kept, but squat and old. The lawn was mowed and the paint fresh.

“Isn’t it time you did?” Ben asked, bluntly.

Rey flushed. “Isn’t it time I stopped what?”

Ben leaned back in his seat, bracing himself with the handle above the window. “Having sex – ”

Something in Rey’s face changed. “Oh, fuck off – ”

“That didn’t come out right.” Ben blurted, red-faced. In a hurry, he explained. “I want you to have sex. Every day. Twice a day. With me. I want _all_ of the sex you have to be with me.”

Rey swallowed hard. She opened her mouth, and then shut it, quickly and shook her head, as if she didn’t believe what she was hearing.

“But I don’t want to be a substitute for anything.” Ben finished. He didn’t know how else to explain how he felt. All he knew was that he didn’t want to be like Brad, Bill, Killian, Andrew, Poe, Alexander, the second Alexander, Michael, or Louis. He didn’t want to try to fill the space in her heart that her parents had left. He couldn’t do that any more than she could prop him up when he was depressed or paralyzed by fear of a psychotic episode.

Rey looked back at the house. Suddenly, she frantically fumbled with the door. She stumbled out of the car and onto the sidewalk. Halfway up the steps of the house, she stopped short and turned around. Coming back to the car, she opened the passenger door and bent down, looking through the vehicle at him.

Over the purr of the engine, she said, “I don’t want to do this alone.”

Ben took the key out of the ignition, killing the engine. It was suddenly very quiet. “You’re not alone.”

***

It took a long time for anyone to answer the door. Ben was about to tell Rey that they’d have to come back later – though he wondered whether he would be able to coax her back into his car after pulling this stunt.

Just as he turned to her to apologize, though for what, he wasn’t sure, the door opened.

The boy who answered it had a popsicle in his hands. Its juice was dripping down his fingers. He looked to be about ten or twelve. He had chestnut brown hair and hazel eyes, and a smattering of freckles. He looked… familiar.

They weren’t familiar to him, obviously. Turning over his shoulder, the boy yelled, “Mom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now, Rey's shit is hitting the literary fan. 
> 
> P.S. The plot bunny bit me! Hold onto your tabbards and swords, I'm writing a medieval AU next.


	11. Chapter 11

The kitchen sink dripped rhythmically in the tidy, cramped kitchen. Rey clutched a mug of tea, looking slightly woozy. Ben tucked his arms and legs under the kitchen table, feeling much too large for the space and the situation. He didn’t belong here. He was a bull in a china shop. He wanted to punch Rey’s father.

Rey’s father looked equally uncomfortable, but Ben had no sympathy for him. He glared at him, his tea untouched. He hadn’t introduced himself when the man had come to the door, ruffling his son’s hair affectionately and then stopping short, looking as if he’d seen a ghost. Rey hadn’t needed to introduce herself.

The man – Kevin, he was called, although Ben would have called him something _much_ less flattering – had recognized Rey on sight. He’d gone white in the face, sent his son to play outside, and made tea with shaking hands.

Rey sat at his kitchen table, politely clutching her mug. She hadn’t flown off the handle or sobbed. She, Ben suspected, just wanted an explanation. She hadn’t gotten one yet. Kevin had made some fumbling, nervous comment about how he’d studied abroad in London – art history, as if they cared – and about how much Rey looked like her mother. But there had been no explanation.

“How do you take your tea?” He asked.

“Black.” Rey’s voice was barely audible.

“Me, too.” Kevin poured her tea and the sat across the table from them, gripping the edge of it. A particularly gleeful and loud screech from the boy playing in the backyard made Rey flinch, almost imperceptibly. “I always have afternoon tea. I picked that up when I studied abroad.”

Rey looked as if she didn’t know what to say. It was uncharacteristic for her to be so polite and withdrawn. Ben was used to her ebullience. “You’re… American.”

It was a stupid, obvious thing to say. He had an American accent. Rey, with her crisp English lilt, may not have expected that. She blinked down at her tea for a moment, the steam making the tip of her nose moist. Kevin shifted. “Your mother was English.”

“Were you married?”

“Ellyn and I were so young.” Her father stammered. He looked like he wanted to bolt. “And you were just a baby when she…”

The muscle along the back of Rey’s neck tensed up. She didn’t look up from her tea. “She what?”

“You didn’t know.”

“No.” Rey said it as if she _did_ know, but didn’t want to believe it.

“She died.” Kevin sounded almost embarrassed, as if her death had been so long ago that he didn’t feel any grief and he was ashamed of that. “When you were a few months old. I was back in the States already and her father lived in Surrey, so it just made sense…”

 “He died, too.” Rey said, stiffly.

“I didn’t hear that.” Kevin said, lamely. Ben wasn’t quite sure he was telling the truth. On one hand, he doubted this man had bothered to keep in touch with his ex-girlfriend’s father. On the other hand, he wouldn’t put it past him, remarried and procreating on purpose this time, to decide it was too inconvenient to cross the Atlantic again to retrieve the product of a youthful indiscretion.

For the first time, Rey was something other than unfailingly polite. Incredulity crept into her voice. “Didn’t you ever wonder what became of me?”

“He didn’t keep in touch.” Kevin paused, seemed to realize how lame of an excuse that was, and then tried again. “I have little kids –”

Rey’s chin quivered. “ _I_ am your kid.”

Kevin opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish. “I was busy.”

“With your new family?”

“With my career – ”

Abruptly, Rey began to cry. “I don’t want an excuse. I just want an explanation.”

Kevin slumped. “I don’t have one, except that I was young and stupid and not ready to be a father.”

Outside, the boy screamed. Rey wiped her cheeks, shaking. “How old is your son?” Her implication was obvious – at some point, Kevin had decided that he was ready to be a father.

“He’s twelve.” Kevin looked out the window. “Do you want to – ”

“No.” Rey stood up, all of the sudden, as if the prospect of meeting her half-brother – the child who had been favored over her, chosen over her, when she’d been an all-but-orphaned teenager – horrified her more than hearing how indifferent and callous her father had been and how her mother had died. “ _No_.”

Kevin stood up too, the way one does when he tries to hint that guests should leave. He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants and, for the first time, addressed Ben. “I guess you’re her boyfriend.”

“Yes.” Ben came closer than he knew Kevin was comfortable with. In any other context, hearing that word would make something warm blossom in his belly. It was a pedestrian, normal word, but one that he hadn’t gotten to use for so long. It was a word that meant he was needed and wanted.

Kevin glanced at Rey, and made a first, weak attempt at being fatherly. “I guess I should tell you to take care of her.”

“Go fuck yourself.” The words came out, bitingly, before Ben could contain them. He couldn’t manage to be polite and distant.  

 “Ben!” Rey choked out, startled.

“She can take care of herself.” Ben ignored Rey. He felt better, now that he had the opportunity to go off on Rey’s father – no, her sperm donor. Kevin didn’t deserve to be called her father. It wasn’t his place to yell at Kevin, but it wasn’t Kevin’s place to offer half-assed fatherly advice. He’d never been a father. “She always had to.”

***

Rey sat in the passenger seat of Ben’s sedan, arms wrapped forlornly around herself. Her face was blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed. They drove in silence for a long time, long enough for Ben to wonder whether she was angry with him for swearing at her father. He’d overstepped his bounds, doing that.

“Thank you.” Rey said, finally.

“For what?” Ben asked, confused. He regretted ever driving her to that house. Maybe she would have been better off in limbo.

“For saying that.”

“Go fuck yourself?” Ben looked over at her as the sedan came to a stop at a red light. _That_ hadn’t taken courage or honor, just pure unadulterated resentment. She _must_ have felt that resentment even more acutely. His emotions were just closer to the surface, unstable and crackling.

Rey forced a watery smile. “You don’t have to pick my fights for me, but I like it when you do.”

Ben gripped the wheel with one hand, and touched her elbow very lightly with his other hand. He cupped it in his palm. It felt bony and sharp against his skin.

He thought about what he’d told her father – that Rey could take care of herself. She could, but he didn’t want her to have to. He wanted to help her. Cursing at her father might have made her feel better for a little while. Punching her father might have made _him_ feel better for a little longer. But Ben knew enough to know that violence and profanity – and self-pity – would not stave off her crushing disappointment in the long run.

Ben had his own emotional problems. He wasn’t in any position to help her with hers. But _Gwen_ was.

He flicked his turn signal. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

***

Gwen and Rey had downed two lattes _each_ by the time Ben picked Rey up. The sun had set hours ago. He’d left them alone at a coffeeshop and made an excuse, not wanting to intrude. His relationship with Gwen was private and sacred to him. She kept his confidences, and he could tell her anything – even things he couldn’t tell Rey.

“She’s wonderful.” Rey reported back, without going into specifics. Ben didn’t ask what they’d talked about. He gave her the same safety net of privacy that he enjoyed whenever he talked to Gwen, even if they weren’t psychologist and patient.

“She is.” He agreed, leaning on his sedan. He waved to Gwen through the window of the coffee shop.

“I’m a little jealous, you know.” Rey told him, toeing his shoes with hers. She didn’t sound serious. It took Ben a moment to realize what she meant.

“Gwen?” He laughed, startled. “She’s like my mom. She’d kill me for saying that, but it’s true.”

Rey wrapped her arms around her chest. Her joke had an air of gallows humor. “So, now we’ve met the parents.”

“That means we’re pretty serious.” Ben teased. Her smile was half-hearted. He could tell she was still thinking about her father, and what a disappointment he’d been. He reached for her arm and tugged it, not wanting her to stand in such a defensive posture. After two tugs, she relented and wrapped her arms around him, leaning heavily into him as if she was very tired. Against her hair, Ben asked, “Why are you jealous of Gwen?”

Rey leaned back, resting her hand on his stomach. “You compartmentalize us, don’t you? You talk to her about things you don’t talk to me about.”

 “You’re my girlfriend.” Ben tightened his grip on her arms, suddenly afraid of losing her in a physical sense. “I don’t want you to psychoanalyze me.”

“You’re my boyfriend.” Rey retorted. “I want you to trust me.”

“Boyfriend. I like the sound of that.” Ben admitted.

Rey poked his chest, smiling despite herself. “Don’t change the subject. I can’t make an informed decision about whether I love you unless you tell me the whole truth.”

“You don’t decide to love someone.” Ben scoffed, after the initial blaze of happiness at hearing her say those four letters had faded. “It just happens.”

“How would you know?” Rey tilted her chin up.

“I love you.” Ben shrugged. It was the first time he’d said it without blurting it out at the wrong time, in bed or otherwise. Something about this conversation made him feel like he had to say it _now_ , just in case.

“Stop changing the subject.” Rey repeated, warningly, even though she had to bit deeply into her lower lip to stop herself from smiling after his admission.

Ben exhaled slowly, defeated. This had been Gwen’s advice, after all – to tell her everything. Maybe he ought to take it, even if it meant that this might the last time he saw that smile. “You want to know what Gwen and I talk about?”

“Yes.”

“I almost killed my father.” Ben said it bluntly. It was easy to admit, in some ways. He didn’t have a strong recollection of doing it. That night had been a dizzying, terrifying web of paranoid delusions. It sometimes seemed as if someone else had lunged at his father in the living room. “I put my hands around his neck and strangled him.”

Rey’s mouth dropped open.

“Is that what you wanted to know?” Ben crossed his arms defensively, now. This was the only thing he’d kept _compartmentalized_ , mostly for fear that Rey would leave him. “What you need to be afraid of? What's the worst thing that could happen to you if I have another episode?”

Rey flushed, as if she was embarrassed for that perfectly natural curiosity. “No – ”

“Don’t lie.” Ben rubbed his face, scrubbing it with his palms. “I’ll take you home, now. If you still want to get in my car.”

***

They drove in awkward silence. Ben expected Rey to fumble nervously for the door handle and run away as soon as he put his car in park. She didn’t. “Can you walk me to the door?”

Ben blinked, confused. “Really?”

“This neighborhood is dodgy.” Rey’s lips twitched. Ben swallowed hard, irrationally grateful that she still wanted him – _him_ , a dangerous man – to keep her safe in her dangerous neighborhood. He scrambled to climb out of the car.

As they tramped up the steps, though, he had an awful thought. Perhaps she was going to break up with him on the steps, with a final goodnight kiss. That had some symmetry to it – she’d kissed him for the first time on this porch. It would be kinder than just leaving him in his idling car and trying to avoid his gaze at the office.

Instead, Rey tugged him down by his jaw and kissed him very gently. “Goodnight, Ben.”

“Just goodnight?” Ben’s mouth went dry. He could hear his pulse in his ears. “Not goodbye?”

“Not goodbye.” Rey touched his chin, tracing its sharp line. “I decided that I do love you.”

Ben swallowed hard. He found it hard to believe she could love him, knowing he'd nearly killed his own father. “Do you really think that’s an… uh, informed decision?”

Rey smiled. “I didn’t really decide. You were right. It just happened.”

Ben nodded, slowly. He should have been beaming, shouting from the rooftops, singing. He couldn’t. Something nagged at him. “Promise me something.”

“Yes?”

“Promise me that if I have another psychotic episode, you won’t stay.” He held up his hand when she started to protest. “You’ll leave, so I can’t hurt you.”

“I promise.” Rey relented. She kissed his knuckles under the light of the streetlamp, and he understood that she wouldn’t invite him in that night. That was all right. There would be other nights. That was all that mattered – that there would other nights and that she loved him. “But I promise I’ll come back for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our epilogue will jump a few months into the future... I wonder where these crazy kids will be?
> 
> P.S. Tonight, I'm publishing the first chapter of my new medieval AU. It's going to be a gritty, angst bodice-ripper. Go check it out! 
> 
> P.S. I purposely chose a very run-of-the-mill name and lame excuse for Rey's parent to be absent from her life because I wanted to play with the Rey Random theory (also, let's be real, there is no good reason to abandom your little cutie on Jakku, er, in foster care).


	12. SIX MONTHS LATER

Ben fingered the freshly-minted apartment key, sitting alone at the same pizza place where he’d taken Rey for their first date. The metal almost seemed as if it was still warm from the key-cutter at the hardware store down the street. He’d gone there after work to cut the key, knowing it was presumptuous. She might not _want_ the key.

He had a list of pragmatic reasons, in case he needed to convince her. Her neighborhood wasn’t safe. Her rent was too high, and she was only a junior project engineer, after all. He was willing to concede that he would take the trash out for her.

But it wasn’t _just_ a key. It represented something he’d never thought he’d have – commitment, normalcy, cohabitation. Someone to make coffee for in the morning and argue over vacuuming with. If he was more sure of himself, and she was more traditional, he might have bought a ring, instead. His moments of crippling self-doubt – how could she want to tie herself, forever, to someone with a potentially debilitating mental illness? – stopped him from doing that.

A key was symbolic than a ring, in some ways. Ben was offering to share his private space with her. That was more intimate than sex and sleepovers. If she accepted, she was implicitly saying that she trusted him enough to stay with him, in his apartment, even if he took a turn for the worse.

“Hello, love.” Rey kissed his chin, leaning across the table before she sat.

“Hi.” She looked absolutely guileless. She didn’t seem to realize that this was the same pizza place. Before he could lose his nerve, Ben blurted out, “I have to ask you a question.

Rey blinked, and then looked around the pizza parlor. Ben could all but see the gears turn under her glossy brown hair. He winced. He could have been a little more subtle – said, _can I ask you a question?_ or ordered food, first. “Wait, this is – this is where we… you aren’t _proposing_ , are you?”

“No, I – wait, would you say no if I did?” Suddenly, Ben was a little offended. A little offended, and a _lot_ disheartened.

“No, I just…” Rey flushed. “I don’t know if I, I don’t know, _believe_ in marriage. It doesn’t matter. What was your question?”

Ben squirmed. He’d always thought that people who said they didn’t _believe_ in marriage just didn’t _believe_ they wanted to marry the person they were with. If she didn’t want to marry him, she probably wouldn’t want to move in with him. “Now I don’t want to ask it.”

Rey exhaled, exasperated. “ _Ben_.”

Ben huffed, stubbornly, and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Then I get to ask you a question.” Rey fingered a napkin, tearing it into little bits. There was a stubborn jut to her jaw now. “I... I have a job offer in London.”

“That’s a question?” Ben didn’t mean to sound so sarcastic. It was a fight-or-flight response to horrible news. He couldn’t run away, so he would pick a fight. “That just sounds like you’re breaking up with me.”

Rey looked up from the napkin. “I’m asking you to come with me.”

“London?” Ben’s throat bobbed, doubtfully. “My job…”

Rey scoffed. “You’re brilliant, Ben, you could work anywhere. They’ve offered me chief project engineer, doing bridges and skyscrapers and stuff.”

Ben floundered. “Gwen is here.”

Something like jealousy flickered across Rey’s face. “They have psychologists in England.”

 Ben looked down at his hands. He would never choose a job over Rey, or Gwen over Rey, or _anything_ over Rey. But she wasn’t just asking him to give up anything – she was asking him to give up _everything_. He’d spent eight painstaking years learning how to navigate this city and his job. It had taken him a long time to feel safe in his apartment and in his cubicle. It had taken him a long time to learn to trust Gwen. He would have to start anew in England with no support system and no safety net. His anxiety spiked just _thinking_ about it.

In a falsely cheerful voice – he knew it was false because her eyes got wet when he didn’t answer her question – Rey chirped, “Pepperoni or sausage?”

“Rey – ” Ben felt like crying, but he didn’t want to see her cry. That would break his stoicism.

“Pepperoni it is.” Rey avoided his eyes. Ben envisioned her leaving him behind, going back to England, and suddenly, he wasn’t very hungry.

***

They had sex at his apartment, and it felt like the last time. It would have been mechanical – the job offer had put a damper on his desire – if he hadn’t been so desperate to do _everything_ , and to commit it to memory. It ended up being exhausting, rather than half-hearted.

Afterwards, Ben lay mute on his back in bed while Rey mumbled something about a shower. She showered for much longer than she usually did – Rey was nothing if not efficient – and when she slipped into bed again, her fingers were pruneish on his skin. Wrapping herself around him, she kissed his shoulder blade.

“I was going to ask you to move in with me.” Ben heard himself say.

“You can still ask.” Rey told him.

“What’s the point?” Ben fought the urge to shrug her off of him. Normally her weight pressed against him in bed was comforting. Now it felt smothering. “You’ll be in London.”

Rey’s breath tickled the back of his neck as she considered it. “If you won’t go with me, I won’t go.”

Guilt roiled the pit of Ben’s stomach, then. He’d let his mental illness hold him back – from promotions, from adventures, from love, from sex, from his family – for years. He had come to terms with the fact that it would always hold him back.

Ben couldn’t bear to hold _Rey_ back. She was too vibrant. She had too much forward momentum to be tied down by someone like him. He felt enormous guilt for the fact that she loved him. She should love someone else – someone who would happily ride double-decker busses and take silly photographs outside of red telephone booths with her. Someone whose mental illness she wouldn’t have to cope with.

Ben knew he should let her go. He even thought he could cope with losing her. It would be hard. Depression was inevitable. Psychosis was possible.

But Rey was stubborn and self-destructive. Every time he tried to push her away, she had held on tighter. She didn’t know what was good for her. He let her, because she was good for _him_.

Maybe, he reflected, she was good for him because she made him uncomfortable. She made him try to be a good boyfriend despite his mental illness. She made him vulnerable when he wanted to close himself off from the world. She made him talk honestly about himself. She made him do things that scared him.

Turnabout was fair play. If she could ask him do things that scared him – like moving to London, _Jesus Christ_ , he thought – he could ask her do things that scared her, too.

 “If I come with you to London,” Ben rasped, rolling over and feeling her breath hot on his face, “will you reconsider your position on marriage?”

Rey was silent for a second, and then she started laughing, startled. He felt her laughter vibrating through her chest and belly, and into his body wherever they were touching. She kissed his chin and nose in the dark, missing his mouth. “Yes.”

“Then, yes.” Ben found her mouth, somehow and kissed her the way he’d wanted to all day. “My answer is yes.”

***

“Dr. Kanata comes highly recommended.” Gwen told Ben.

Ben sunk deeper into the couch. He didn’t want to stand up. This was his last appointment with Gwen, in this familiar room, on this familiar couch, and it had already run ten minutes late. “By who?”

“By me.” Gwen laughed. “She was my mentor in graduate school.”

 Reluctantly, Ben stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, awkwardly. “She’s not you, Gwen.”

To his surprise, Gwen teared up. She held out her arms, her lip quivering. “Stop that. Give me a hug. You’re not my patient anymore.”

Ben folded her in his arms, carefully. It felt odd, after years and years of remaining at a at least somewhat professional distance. “I’ll miss you.”

“Call me any time.” Gwen smiled up at him. “But now that I’m not your psychologist, I want you to only call me with happy news, okay? I expect there to be a lot of it.”

***

“Did you pick up your prescriptions?” Rey asked, as she stacked boxes near the door. They had suitcases – six of them – packed. They’d sold his furniture and just thrown hers away, because it was so shabby and old. Everything else was boxed up, bound for a storage unit.

“Yes.” Ben looked around the bare, stark apartment. “Did you print the boarding passes?”

“Yes.” Rey stood on her tip-toes to peck his mouth. “Did you clean out your cubicle?”

“Yes.” Ben counted the boxes. So few, considering how much of his life he’d spent between these walls. “Did you give away all your plants?”

“All but my miniature ficus.” Rey grinned. “I’m smuggling that one with me. Are we forgetting anything?”

Ben wasn’t forgetting anything, but he had been putting something off. He kissed her one more time. “One more thing. Give me a minute?”

Obligingly, Rey started taking boxes to the storage unit. Standing in the empty room, Ben dialed a telephone number he still had memorized. The dial tone repeated several times before the click.

“Hello?” The familiar, gravelly but still somehow feminine voice was fuzzy. The connection was bad, but it was the first one he’d had with her in years.

Ben should have apologized for being away for so long, or for not calling, and said that he was doing better. He should have told her he’d met someone. That he loved her, loved her madly, probably, because he was moving to London for her.

Instead, he cleared his throat. “Is Dad there?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your feedback - what did you like? what didn't you like? - means the world to me. This was a labor of love. I hope I didn't tie it up too neatly - life is never neat, especially when you have a mental illness or commitment issues. But love is worth the mess. 
> 
> P.S. but I won't rule out a follow-up one-shot. I mean, aren't we all curious whether Rey changes her position on marriage? 
> 
> P.P.S. If you haven't checked out my new fic, Primae Noctis, please do!

**Author's Note:**

> Leave me a comment. Let's collaborate on this.


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